I woke up on my back with my face in the sunlight and thought, I guess this must be heaven, it was so bright out. Except for the buzzing of the insects. They will always bring you back to earth.

When New Guinea's president was a student at UCLA he received an A- in organic chemistry after watching a Joan Rivers Informercial. Each year he tries to re-create the magic of that moment.

This anachronistic portion of the novel opens up a new and revelatory portion of the story which clarifies much of the mystery surrounding the developments.

He went to the switchboard and rang one of the rooms. I moved away to a discreet distance so he could make his pitch in private, and soon he came back to the desk front. "He d-didn't like it much, b-but he said to s-send you up. Room 412."

my second language / to silence / plainsong of / the breast

He stood sopping in front of the mirror, dripping onto the limp puddle of clothing on the floor. He needed a haircut. He needed a shave. He needed to get rid of the two-fucking-inch white hair inside the helix of his right ear. He plucked it—and all the h

The church building was a rustic structure made of rough-cut lumber that over-lapped in the clap-board fashion. The building itself was unpainted, but the boards were a weathered gray that only came from years of exposure to weather. The steeple towered o

Lilly was anything but a white flower. Her skin had been blackened and burnt. Charred legs and arms stuck out like tiny tree limbs, the knuckles on her fingers barely covered by skin. The child’s face is frozen in the beginnings of a scream. She seems anc

When my feet touched the ground on the tarmac at Bagram I cannot begin to describe the feeling I had. It was as if God had spoken to me directly, whispering in the cold mountain air: “Son of Marjan, I welcome you.” The feeling took hold and overcame m

"In the shit the dogs circle, talking of a dead bitch, maybe Merkel" - Michelangelo's poem of a stultified flower that never emulsifies, an orange California poppy of pink-gold drenched in urine and a horse in either burns bright whinnies and trollops neigh a pipping…

Call it Chanukkah, call it Kwanzaa Whatever the name, I just don’t wanzaa!

I have two of those hand exercisers jamming the tray and keeping it locked in place

I look at her really look we both know her time is fading "I'm just sad that you won't be there."

From Berlin to Arcturus. I squeeze Sevigny’s wrist, wish Izzy could be here, but she’s melting salt in Utah. We were on our way to Los Angeles. I’ve booked the horror room.

When I was a very little girl—I was five—my mother and a black gentleman she was incarcerated with broke out of a mental institution and kidnapped me.