Between the clay banks of the Eastern Shore of Maryland and the brackish waters of the Chesapeake Bay there is a beach a thousand miles long. The sand is fine enough, but it is sharp with oyster shells and rough with stones the color of ox...
For six years she had worked in an office where the telephones rang constantly, but in the last week, each time her phone went off, Moira jumped and blanched. She turned the ringer down, but it didn’t help. This reaction to the telephone...
Well, I thought he looked good in the coffin. Had seen him only twice since I left Chicago, once in ‘53 when he and Mom made that trip to California, his last attempt to lure one of us back to the Trophy World, and then in ‘56 when Mom...
Neil and Karen rise at seven, before their children and before his parents, and creep through the old beach house as quietly as possible, the sand on the kitchen linoleum sticking to their bare feet. On the porch, where no one will hear...
She came in late on a busy Friday evening. I wouldn’t have paid much attention to her if she hadn’t been blowing Gauloise smoke at me through sidelong, never-catch-me-looking-at-you kind of glances. I was pouring her Beam and Bud depth...
The idea was—when each of us boys in our family came of age—i.e., ten—my father was to take us on the Northcoast Limited back to Chicago and tell us the Facts of Life on the way.
