Contents


Acknowledgements
Introduction: The Reading Life
The Ancient Mariner tells his tale.
“Life is not a novel.”
The center doesn’t hold.

Chapter 1: An Imagined Childhood
I’ve been putting it up my whole life.
“Did you hear the rain one night?”
Standing on the Radley porch is enough.
Frankie Addams and Mick Kelly are the “we of me.”
Life is a slide show, flashes of light and color.

Chapter 2: Southern Fictions
Mrs. McIntyre watched while the tractor rolled.
I turned to dust and stone.
Laughter reverberates in Dixie.
Some go to Lourdes, while others go to Rowan Oak.
I long for days and times I only imagine I know.
There are no memory chests in the attic.


Chapter 3: Memory and Knowing
“‘Star Wars’ must seem less strange to you.”
Byron Bunch and Addie Bundren are familiar to me.
Adoption is a socially sanctioned lie.
“Betty Ann Miracle” is written in her Bible.
I hope they’re together in the pretty green pasture.

Chapter 4: Children Not Our Own
Rachel Moore lives at the P.O.
So much depends upon red wheelbarrows.
Laura Flood and Matt Josey are my children, too.
There are other voices, other rooms.
“The truth is, it goes by fast, doesn’t it?”


Conclusion: Reconstructed (But Unregenerate)
Reading great books saved my life.
“And so they are ever returning to us, the dead.”

Appendix
Works Cited
Index
About the Author