Chapters (60)
- Cover
- Title Page
- Personae
- I: Early Days
- One. Control
- Two. Doubt
- Three. Fate
- Four. Same
- Five. Fine Arts
- Six. In Loco Parentis
- Seven. Settling
- Eight. Neighbors
- Nine. Prospects
- Ten. The Lucky
- Eleven. Instruction
- Twelve. Same
- Thirteen. This Is a Pipe
- Fourteen. This Is Not a Pipe
- Fifteen. The Reason
- Sixteen. That Person
- Seventeen. Predictably
- II: Writing Teacher
- Eighteen. Early Poems
- Nineteen. Motivation
- Twenty. Allegory
- Twenty-One. Grief
- Twenty-Two. A Portrait
- Twenty-Three. Veils
- Twenty-Four. Soft Power
- Twenty-Five. Lists
- Twenty-Six. A Break
- Twenty-Seven. Elsewhere
- Twenty-Eight. Custom
- Twenty-Nine. Parity
- Thirty. Fortune
- III: Volta
- Thirty-One. Images
- Thirty-Two. A Very Interesting Young Man
- Thirty-Three. Letters
- Thirty-Four. We Prefer to See Ourselves Living
- Thirty-Five. Love
- Thirty-Six. The Iceberg
- IV: Your Best Reader
- Thirty-Seven. A Novelist
- Thirty-Eight. In Advance of the Broken Arm
- Thirty-Nine. Their Penultimate Encounter
- Forty. Détente
- Forty-One. Worlds
- Forty-Two. Recognition
- Forty-Three. Persistence
- Forty-Four. And Then
- Forty-Five. Mingling
- Forty-Six. You
- Forty-Seven. Persona
- Forty-Eight. Est et Non
- Forty-Nine. The Author
- Epilogue
- Afterword: The Libertine
- Acknowledgments
- About the Authors
“I know! I mean, my dad is kind of famous, but my mom is, like, so famous.” She laughs again. “Everyone’s always so curious about that! I mean, actually, I was just thinking how it would be really funny if someone got into the program but they didn’t even know who she was!”
“Wow,” says Loudermilk. “That would be very funny.”
“It would, wouldn’t it? It would be so hysterical!”
Harry knows that Loudermilk has done it. He put way too much shit on that last one. Harry awaits the descent of the other shoe.
Lizzie is like, “Hey, hey, hey, so by the way, I was wondering, which of my mom’s books do you like the best? Because I know that can get really contentious among the first-years!”
“Gosh,” Loudermilk says, “it’s so hard to choose.”
“I bet!” Lizzie is swinging. She puts her back into it. The set whistles and caws.
Loudermilk doesn’t say anything.
“I’m waiting!” Lizzie yells.
“Don’t know if I have a favorite!”
“OK!” Lizzie pumps higher and higher. Her words are choppy: “So here’s—question—mom’s—name?”
Loudermilk doesn’t say anything.
“Come—! Easy—pie!”
“What?” Loudermilk yells.
“NAME!”
Loudermilk, who never remembers anything, says something about Mrs. Hillary.
“Shit!” Lizzie is laughing maniacally, and at the highest point in her journey she launches herself from the seat of the swing, screaming, “I SO KNEW!”
There is a thud, then silence.
Loudermilk and Harry disengage from the equipment. They stumble over the black grass and find Lizzie in a ball. Her shoulders move rhythmically.
Harry hears himself say, “You all right?” His voice breaks on the second word, and it comes out as an unintelligible croak.
Loudermilk translates. “He’s asking if you’re OK.”
Lizzie peers up at her interrogators.
Harry can taste blood in his mouth.
“They don’t love each other anymore, by the way, in case that’s what you were wondering? They actually talk about it in front of me, like I don’t exist.”
Fifteen. The Reason
Fifteen
The Reason
Everyone knows it’s hard being a writer, but what they don’t know is that it’s hard being a writer most of all because inevitably you have a past. As a writer, you will have used this past to write things and now, in the present, it’s difficult not to think about what you’ve done. The unfortunate things you wrote silence you, but, unfortunately, the successful things can do the same. Not that any of this matters for Clare, who can’t write at all, at least not in the present. Clare’s prize-winning short story, composed approximately three years ago, published in late 2000, and officially lauded in the spring of 2001, is titled “The Lift.” She submitted it as her writing sample with her application to the Seminars.