“House Made of Snow”
Matthew Lansburgh
“All evening, Stewart has behaved properly. Of this he is certain. Now it is late though, and night coaxes him into its arms.”
“All evening, Stewart has behaved properly. Of this he is certain. Now it is late though, and night coaxes him into its arms.”
“This was the summer they entered phone booths and ran out shrieking. ”
“When he was still very young, Chico thought that all other families were just like his.”
“Now, after so much time has passed, I am still dwelling on it, incredulous. How is it possible that someone like me had allowed an unknown woman into my house on a stormy night?”
“In her adulthood strangers asked, “Where’d you get your accent?” They guessed England, they guessed Sweden, they guessed the South.”
“Here’s what I know: life is short and life is long. Allow me to explain.”
“And then we proceed to wander around the city in search of shelter. We drift through the morbid yellow afternoon. ”
“This when I was someone else. Like every day since we moved to the town, that Monday morning I got on my bike and started pedalling.”
“Driving along Eighty-sixth Street in Brooklyn, Dexter Styles saw Badger check his wristwatch and then extend a hairy hand toward the radio dial, presumably to turn on the five-thirty a.m. news.”
“One girl. We lay down next to each other on the musty rug in her basement.”
“Two men escorted Håkan through the empty barroom and led him upstairs to a room adjacent to the woman’s.”
“Zumki stops her dad in the middle of the bustling New York street and insists that he tells her the snow lion story again. ”
“The cold water jabbed Suvi’s skin like a thousand sea urchin pricks.”
“We’re in Oscar’s car, which is an old Chevy Cavalier. Greyish blue. There is dog hair everywhere. I sit in the back and stare out the window, watching lights fly by and then just deep, country darkness.”
“From his balcony Nikhil waited and watched the street as hyacinth braiders tied floral knots, rum sellers hauled bags of ice, and the row of elderly typists, who’d seemed elderly to him since he’d been a boy, struck the last notes of their daily work.”
“Ted had been an involved father from the moment of Stella’s birth. He was one of the new generation of men who regularly feed, dress, and bathe their babies”
“I first saw her where the two rivers meet, brown and black, pressing their long, watery bodies together over mud and sand.”
“Now Naomi and Michael were exchanging a series of vows that David was pretty sure were cribbed from a pop song.”
“Mr. Costello was a quiet, balding man with a ready grin. Polite and hush-voiced when he spoke to the Sisters, but loud and full of good humor when he called to people on the street.”
“Joan was drying the last dinner plate, about to go wrap Sadie’s birthday presents, but her husband George took the dishtowel from her hand and replaced it with a glass of red wine.”
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