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Chapters (60)
  1. Cover
  2. Title Page
  3. Personae
  4. I: Early Days
  5. One. Control
  6. Two. Doubt
  7. Three. Fate
  8. Four. Same
  9. Five. Fine Arts
  10. Six. In Loco Parentis
  11. Seven. Settling
  12. Eight. Neighbors
  13. Nine. Prospects
  14. Ten. The Lucky
  15. Eleven. Instruction
  16. Twelve. Same
  17. Thirteen. This Is a Pipe
  18. Fourteen. This Is Not a Pipe
  19. Fifteen. The Reason
  20. Sixteen. That Person
  21. Seventeen. Predictably
  22. II: Writing Teacher
  23. Eighteen. Early Poems
  24. Nineteen. Motivation
  25. Twenty. Allegory
  26. Twenty-One. Grief
  27. Twenty-Two. A Portrait
  28. Twenty-Three. Veils
  29. Twenty-Four. Soft Power
  30. Twenty-Five. Lists
  31. Twenty-Six. A Break
  32. Twenty-Seven. Elsewhere
  33. Twenty-Eight. Custom
  34. Twenty-Nine. Parity
  35. Thirty. Fortune
  36. III: Volta
  37. Thirty-One. Images
  38. Thirty-Two. A Very Interesting Young Man
  39. Thirty-Three. Letters
  40. Thirty-Four. We Prefer to See Ourselves Living
  41. Thirty-Five. Love
  42. Thirty-Six. The Iceberg
  43. IV: Your Best Reader
  44. Thirty-Seven. A Novelist
  45. Thirty-Eight. In Advance of the Broken Arm
  46. Thirty-Nine. Their Penultimate Encounter
  47. Forty. Détente
  48. Forty-One. Worlds
  49. Forty-Two. Recognition
  50. Forty-Three. Persistence
  51. Forty-Four. And Then
  52. Forty-Five. Mingling
  53. Forty-Six. You
  54. Forty-Seven. Persona
  55. Forty-Eight. Est et Non
  56. Forty-Nine. The Author
  57. Epilogue
  58. Afterword: The Libertine
  59. Acknowledgments
  60. About the Authors

Once his breathing has slowed Beans decides to risk it. He is crouching, facing the building. Slowly, cautiously, Beans raises his eyes above the sill.

In the room before him, someone in a baggy black T-shirt is hunched over a card table. Beans gazes. Beans stares. The person is writing. Beans strains his ears and can hear dull scratches of a pen, an occasional labored breath. The person is not Loudermilk.

Anton Beans cannot believe his luck.

III: Volta

III

VOLTA

Thirty-One. Images

Thirty-One

Images

Clare Elwil has not returned to New York for the holiday interregnum. Instead, she remains in furnished midwestern rooms, combing over the past. She has come to the conclusion that—but she pauses, midtrain. It is 11:00 a.m. For the moment, Clare ignores the day of the week, the date. The sky is white, edged with orange. Clare is in bed, testing her senses with the cold against her exposed face, the chill end of her nose. The radiator whispers. Is it OK to not be working?