2.5**Harry March has lived on Quogue, Long Island for his entire life. In fact, generations of Marches have inhabited the house on the small Tennessee-shaped island in the middle of the creek. In late middle-age, he’s become quite the misanthrope, however, and somewhat of a hermit. His children...
Humor, Wit, Satire
Why is Professor Peace Porterfield trying to save Beet College? His own wife, Livi, hates the place. The Board of Trustees, led by developer Joel Bollovate, has squandered the endowment. Debutante-cum-self-styled-poet Matha Polite, an indis-criminate radical with a four-student following, wants t...
The day they dropped the giant turf? It never happened, of course, but it was something. The sky was packed with balloonish clouds as dark as the turf itself. When we looked up, turf and sky were seamless, and it appeared that everything hanging over us, the entire universe, in fact, was turf. On...
The revolver was ice. Since nine-year-olds didn’t wear suit jackets, I had to carry it in a jury-rigged shoulder holster under my polo shirt, and the cap gun was ice against my chest. The look was that of a kid who had just snitched a mango from a fruit stand and was trying to conceal it. Nonethe...
The only way to be sure is to rub each clump between your thumb and index finger, which makes a mess of your hands. For some twenty minutes this morning, Ginny and I have been hunting in the kitchen trash can for the top front left tooth of our seven-year-old granddaughter, Jessica. Loose for day...
Anurada came to the essay-writing class after a tour in the Marines in Iraq, where she served as the lone woman in a hand-to-hand combat unit. She stood about five-four, and weighed no more than 110 pounds. And except for the standard-issue student outfit of a T-shirt and jeans, she looked quite ...