“So she drank to the point of suicide, because a life which not only lacked love, but couldn't even catch a little indifference, like a net to contain air, was intolerable; because she hadn't a single god, or goddamn thing to do, or anything she could look back on as done—completed or accomplished—only one pleasureless screw which produced an ingrate and a monster upon whom she nevertheless pinned her hopes with exactly the same chance for success as anyone would who tried to drive a nail into a passing cloud—a son to whom she threw her soul at considerable peril, like a stone in a paper boat.”

— William H. Gass , book The Tunnel

pgs 136-137
The Tunnel (1995)

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William H. Gass 16

Fiction writer, critic, philosophy professor 1924–2017

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William H. Gass 16

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