Contents

Introduction

Part One

1.   A germ of an idea wriggling to life

2.   Weirdly real

3.   Too precious for words

4.   Imaginary people

5.   An almost perfect contentment

6.   The messenger of death

7.   Instruments of patriarchal tyranny

8.   Like a murder of crows

9.   The field of poppies

Part Two

10. So much for honor

11. A disturbing fervor

12. We don’t recycle around here

13. The neurophysiology of the frog

14. Things you have to sneak around after dark doing

15. Gingerbread cottages and sparkling waters

16. A hole in the ground

17. Evidence

18. Put on something pretty

19. Control the agenda

20. Hideous Happycrap

21. The screams of local preservationists

22. Excalibur

23. Made to be ruined

24. Poise like a statue of Stalin

25. If a hermit lives in ecstasy

26. Rampant liberalism, radical feminism, and intellectual torpor

Part Three

27. Happy Thanksgiving and good riddance

28. Every child should be so lucky

29. Walking backwards

30. Sob sister

31. As if nothing unusual were happening

32. An incomprehensible and very annoying rasp

33. It’s your funeral

34. The Future