Do You Realize How Angry You Sound?”

Lyda Was An Exuberant, Even A Dramatic Gardener.... She Was Always Holding Up A Lettuce Or A Bunch Of Radishes With An Air Of Resolute Courage, As Though She Had Shot Them Herself.

My Grandmother Refused To Concede That Any Member Of The Family Died Of Natural Causes. An Uncle's Cancer In Middle Age Occurred Because All The Suitcases Fell Off The Luggage Rack Onto Him When He Was In His Teens, And So Forth. Death Was An Acquired Characteristic.

Nothing Defines The Quality Of Life In A Community More Clearly Than People Who Regard Themselves, Or Whom The Consensus Chooses To Regard, As Mentally Unwell.

Fear . . . Is Forward. No One Is Afraid Of Yesterday.

The Writer Has A Grudge Against Society, Which He Documents With Accounts Of Unsatisfying Sex, Unrealized Ambition, Unmitigated Loneliness, And A Sense Of Local And Global Distress. The Square, Overpopulation, The Bourgeois, The Bomb And The Cocktail Party Are Variously Identified As Sources Of The Grudge. There Follows A Little Obscenity Here, A Dash Of Philosophy There, Considerable Whining Overall, And A Modern Satirical Novel Is Born.