“I was eager . . . for a quiet, unambitious existence,” Sam Lipsyte writes. “I didn’t foresee that two events would infuse this period with an intensity I haven’t quite known since.”
During my mid-twenties, I hit what you might call a bottom. Since college, I’d partaken too liberally in wine and song, although in this case the wine was cheap beer and street drugs and the song was my self-sabotaging punk band. When the band broke apart, I cleaned up and moved back in with my mother. I got a job as a substitute teacher. One period I might be covering a history class, the next running a chemistry lab. I was grateful to the student who said, “Mr.
First came a phone call from Gordon Lish, the famous fiction editor. I’d received encouraging rejections from his magazine in college, but I’d lost my drive and nerve for writing fiction. Now I began to rediscover it, and after I sent in a new story he offered me a spot in a private seminar that some considered a cult. I had already attended twelve-step meetings and they’d helped me, so I figured there were good cults and bad cults.
So began these odd, indelibly heightened few years during which clarifying routine and caregiving replaced the ecstatic murk of earlier days. I subbed and ran errands and went to appointments with my mother. After chemotherapy, her markers would improve, decline, hint at new improvements.
United States Latest News, United States Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Abcarian: On affirmative action, Justice Jackson blasts her colleagues' 'let-them-eat-cake obliviousness'Abcarian: On affirmative action, Justice Jackson blasts her colleagues' 'let-them-eat-cake obliviousness' (via latimesopinion )
Read more »
YMCAs around Austin participate in the World's Largest Swimming LessonOver a thousand kids at the Northwest Austin YMCA participated in the World's Largest Swimming Lesson. 40,000 kids from 41 states and 18 countries took part in the one-day event which raises awareness about the crucial importance of water safety
Read more »
Search Team CEO Gets Teary Recounting Recovery of Doomed Titan Sub“I have to apologize, we are still demobilizing, there’s a lot of emotions, people are tired,” he said, choking up and fighting back tears.
Read more »
Score over $200 off on a lifetime sub to Babbel language learning appLearn a language for less!
Read more »
ChatGPT parent company OpenAI to open first office outside the US in LondonCEO Sam Altman says London location is an 'opportunity to attract world-class talent'.
Read more »
Caitriona Balfe & Sam Heughan on 'Outlander' Season 7 and How Jamie Might Feel About DisneylandThey also talk about the emotions that come with knowing Season 8 will be their last, and the most important lessons Claire & Jamie have learned.
Read more »