Wednesday, March 2, 2011

REVOLUTION!


I was going to wait to buy this at the 510, but I couldn't hold out. Here is my favorite paragraph so far:

"That man, that typical drunk gringo in Guatemala, had emerged from the bar, sobering in the light, brushing off his shirt, waving away his comrades, and had taken a new walk-- not the one he took with me, that was just more of the same, minus the drinking-- but the one after ours, a walk he would never return from, not really, not because he didn't want to and not because he wasn't allowed to, but because he couldn't. A typical man is capable of that."

It demonstrates everything that I enjoy about Deb Olin Unferth's style-- the rhythm of the sentences, the way they build something and still hold something back. It's just beautiful.