San Miguel

About suffering, they were wrong,

The Old Masters; how well they understood

Its human position: how it takes place

While someone is eating or opening a window

or just walking dully along.

--W.H. Auden, Musée des Beaux Arts

Historical fiction. Extremely well-done. Makes me want to read the historical accounts of the true inhabitants: The Legendary King of San Miguel (Elizabeth Sherman Lester), San Miguel Island: My Childhood Memoir, 1930-1942 (Betsy Lester Roberti) and Mrs. Waters' Diary of Her Life on San Miguel Island (edited by Marla Daily).

Inez Deane

Does life go on? It does though she sank low enough to consider the alternative, even going so far as to take her stepfather's rifle down from its hook and caress the trigger where it shone silver from use, and she spent one dismal fog-haunted afternoon suspended over the ocean on a fragment of rock no wider than the seat of a chair, daring herself to jump. She could hear the crash of the waves, taste the salt spray. The damp penetrated her hair, slicked the rock till it might have been greased....

pg. 199

San Miguel

by T.C. Boyle

 

 

Great backlist. I'm excited. I love finding an author I love who's beenbwriting for awhile. Keeps me happy m