Sublime

Sometimes, Violet wondered whether Father wasn’t trying to protect her from the village. Whether it was, in fact, the other way around.

This was not the story of François Mitterrand, once president of France, and his hidden daughter, Mazarine. I knew better than to imagine the grandeur of a president. Mitterrand had split his holidays between both families, the women and children stood together at his funeral, whereas Father’s worlds existed on parallel planes, never intersecting.

She couldn’t believe how fast her mind was moving, but perhaps these truths had been inside her all along and were accessible now because she’d given birth. She saw everything so clearly. She had spent her whole life trying to fix other people—her parents, her sisters, William—but that had been a fruitless endeavor; she could see that now. She coul

You can love a bad book for its haplessness or pomposity or gall, if you have that starveling appetite for things human, which I devoutly hope you never will have. “The full soul loatheth an honeycomb; but to the hungry soul every bitter thing is sweet.” There are pleasures to be found where you would never look for them. That’s a bit of fatherly w

She was seventeen and her grief for herself was almost as great as her grief for her mother.