
“What a lot we lost when we stopped writing letters. You can't reread a phone call.”
The Complete Neurotic's Notebook (1981), Unclassified
“What a lot we lost when we stopped writing letters. You can't reread a phone call.”
“The mirrors in the room go black and blue”
Cold Roses
29 (2005)
“I’ve been rereading your book. There’s love on every page.”
Afterword to The Dud Avocado (2006)
Context: The reviews were excellent and the book quickly went into a second printing. Then one night Ken came home and threw a copy of the book out the window. "You weren’t a writer when I married you, you were an actress," he said angrily. Obviously his colleagues had been riding him because of the attention I was receiving. I was shattered. The next day, he said, "I’ve been rereading your book. There’s love on every page." And then he gave me a beautiful red leather-bound copy of it with the inscription: "From the Critic to the Author." Looking at it I felt a pang. I wondered if it was his admission of what I’d done that he had not.
To my wonder and, it appeared, his annoyance, the book wouldn’t go away.