"His features wrinkle into the center of his face, as if he‘s a couch that‘s been sat on, as if he‘s an asshole swallowing his features, swallowing the world."
"His features wrinkle into the center of his face, as if he‘s a couch that‘s been sat on, as if he‘s an asshole swallowing his features, swallowing the world."
"Ian cringes; he doesn‘t like "third world" hierarchical language. Pats the smalls of Cordelia: back, elbow, knees. *She* gets it. She‘s not some big-titted provincial. He stares at Caren‘s tits as he strokes Cordelia‘s knees, combining them."
"Cordelia rouses, the image of the hunger striker rubbing against the running children, the burning nun. Christ. She murmurs against his chest hair, loving this bedtime story, the total horror of it, the slow roll of it off his tongue."
"Yeah? Well, those kids running through the streets of Bhopal, they can‘t fucking *breathe* anymore. This is worse than the bomb: Nobody gets to just evaporate. "Radiate and fade away," yeah well, no such fucking luck. He is on a roll. He is never going to go to sleep tonight."
"CBC World News: Few words from Bhopal, India, city of nine hundred thousand. Indian death toll sixteen hundred. More than two hundred thousand, more than a million . . . who knows how many are affected. Many are thought to be children. The same CNN footage of darkskinned children rolls. They laugh, wow: The CBC is cheaping out on the cameraman! Is it even from Bhopal? Or just a reel of recycled Biafrans?"
"Of course it‘s an American company, of course it has a squalid Midwestern name like Union Carbide. Ian unsurprises it, makes it known, common, (almost) predicted and predictable. Of course. I mean, they‘re headquartered in *Connecticut.*"
This is a stunning, thought-provoking book! I love owlish Cordelia and her conversations with Jerome.