“The only ones we never killed were the wall geckos. Armed with nothing but silence, the hopeful geckos slithered across the empty spot, across the walls, only searching for their way to the roof.”

“My delicious red children. I go back to my spot on the bed and as I pop a berry into my mouth like a pill, I decide to listen to the audiobook of Lana Del Rey’s new poetry book.”

The first line of the novel is, ‘What I did to them was terrible, but you have to understand the context.’

The answer to the “Negro question” is a mix of sermon and jeremiad, calling attention to the gap between a desired moral universe and disastrous present reality.

“Memories that I had buried with graduate work were now being triggered by my return. A pit grew in my stomach over the next month, prohibiting me from enjoying the most basic things…”