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701 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1984
A headless silver beauty whose six mother of pearl arms sprouted in a circle from around its purring, pulsating mouth. A creature like a ripple on a fast- running stream, constant but moving, giving out a sweet and even tone.
He had seen [New York] wake in the morning like a slut, and pick murdered men from between her teeth, and suicides from the tangles of her hair.
He’d taken refuge in pretended guilt, and locked himself away where memory, and revenge, and the truth, the wild, marauding truth, could never touch him again.
I don’t have any notion whether these stories will survive the passing of time; I doubt any author can know that with any certainty. But they’re written, set in stone, for better or worse, and though I might wish I’d polished this sentence better, or excised that, they still please me. That’s the most you can hope, I think: that the work you do pleases, both in the doing and the revisiting.