I have grown out of the sock drawer. a vagrant unfit holed structure that still somehow keeps you warm.

Because I was brown
they cocked their thumbs
aimed pasty forefingers
at me while they shouted
‍ ‍ Take that, Geronimo!

It’s as easy as it sounds in my grandparents’ letters to live a normal life under an authoritarian regime. You love or fall out of love, you go on summer adventures, defend a dissertation. The trains keep running, cows keep giving milk.

“Half my year I don't write at all because I’m fishing.”

“Up here he no longer needed to hide his voice.”

Everyone thinks they know what love is, but most have no clue. Reading hooks' works on love, you’ll likely discover, for the most part, that nobody loves you. Not your family, not your friends, not your “lover.” You also might discover that you don’t love anyone either.

A Coronavirus novel, in theory, brings a quotidian narrative to epidemic literature. This is not a story of a select few but rather of everyone; not only lives but livelihoods.

It helps to know, especially
when you’re hiding.

You don’t read Ben Lerner’s writing. You read Ben Lerner’s mind. His immense, contorted, self-effacing, hilarious intellect propels his narratives. Sure, his novels have characters, plots, themes.