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    • Jessica3 years ago

      Wow. I am in complete awe. This is an incredible read.

      We will never know all the other things people worry about.

      Also, I am a fool for initially thinking this piece would involve more Tom Hanks.

      • bill
        Top reader of all time
        3 years ago

        Ha! I too thought we were in for a Tom Hanks ride. And I (weirdly?) wasn't expecting coronavirus to creep in the story. Totally didn't see it coming. The way the pandemic arrived (and then never left) in Ann's story felt energetically almost exactly like how it felt in reality, in my memory. When Tom Hanks gets the illness, I was like Wait, I knew this was coming! but the way the story is told everything felt super-fresh, surprising.

        • Jessica3 years ago

          I’m with you on all that - coronavirus snuck in the story.. yet it belongs right there.

          I greatly wish to be able to write in a way that connects to readers the way her writing does. Her writing is stunning.

      • DellwoodBarker3 years ago

        👌Yes! Excellent stand-out quote selection.👌

    • deephdave
      Top reader of all timeScoutScribe
      3 years ago

      Magnificent read!

      There is nothing more interesting than time: the days that are endless, the days that get away. There are days of the distant past that remain so vivid to me that I could walk back into them and pick up the conversation mid-sentence, while there are other days (weeks, months, people, places) I couldn’t recall to save my life. One of the last things I understand when I’m putting a novel together is the structure of time. When does the story start and when does it end? Will time be linear or can it stutter and skip? At what point does our understanding of the action shift?

      • bill
        Top reader of all time
        3 years ago

        Magnificent quote!

    • DellwoodBarker3 years ago

      Outstanding! 111 minutes of Quality Reading. Laughter, tears, quiet sounds of affirmations...repeat... Loved every sacred moment of this.

      Stand-out:

      She and Tom would walk in the desert in the early mornings and she would feed him lines from a script while he memorized his part, cobras skating through the dust just in front of them. Death was there during those long, sunny days. Death was the river that ran underground, always. It was just that we had piled up so much junk to keep from hearing it.

    • bill
      Top reader of all time
      3 years ago

      Wow. I loved this so much. (I was inspired to do a long one because Hiroshima is AOTD today.)

      Ann Patchett is a spectacular writer. Maybe one of the best alive. She's so easy to read, yet so deeply rewarding. Time very well spent.