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
Given the lack of an immediate escape route, Harry decides to halfway acquiesce. The tequila splashes pleasantly against the front of his brain. “Anne Sexton,” he mutters. “Pretty obvious.” He uncovers his cup for seconds.
Loudermilk holds the bottle poised. “And who is that?”
Harry says that Anne Sexton is an American poet. This, at any rate, is true.
The cup is filled.
Harry adds that she was an incredible cook.
“Kinky,” Loudermilk muses.
“I guess.”
“No, I mean the girl, that Christy. She’s quite the kinkster. I wonder what she’s trying to tell me?”
Harry is drinking tequila.
“With a name like that—Sex-ton. I mean, like you say, you can’t get much more obvious! But seriously though, dude.” Loudermilk sets down the bottle. “I’ve been thinking about it. A lot of these people like I could just kind of do without them or whatever, right? But some of them, I mean, like, at least one of them? Must be kind of smart or whatever and maybe they would, you know, get you? You know?” Loudermilk attempts to gaze penetratingly into Harry’s sheet. “Fuck, that thing is uncanny.”
“It was your idea.”
“You see what I’m saying?” Loudermilk refills Harry’s cup.
“I can’t really see anything.”
Loudermilk is gazing around the room. “They like what you do, dude. You realize that, right? I mean, they think they like what I do, but you know what I’m saying. They fucking loved ‘Writing Teacher.’ These are probably, like, your people or something. I mean, maybe if all were right with the world you’d just be out here on your own, being a poet or something. Happy and whatnot. I do kind of think about that at times. I’m not a total craven douche.”
Harry thanks Loudermilk for his solicitude.
“What?”
“Your kindness.”
“Sorry, dude. Sheet.”
“Thanks for caring.”
“So listen,” Loudermilk is saying, “I’m gonna go back and check in with Christy and so forth, make sure she’s enjoying her party, compliment her on her look, shoot the shit, testify to my knowledge of sexy Sex-ton? I’m not going to promise you I’m gonna return right away, but I will be back. Main thing is, you can handle this. You’re ready for a solo mission if ever anyone was, and I can’t keep holding you back, see, killing you with my kindness?”