A few words are in order about this essay’s title. It is pilfered from that great American man of letters, Edmund Wilson, who used it for his collection of American writing, The Shock of Recognition.
Well, I thought he looked good in the coffin. Had seen him only twice since I left Chicago, once in ‘53 when he and Mom made that trip to California, his last attempt to lure one of us back to the Trophy World, and then in ‘56 when Mom...
This is what it was like: the morning pale all above me, a patch of sky like a blue poker flung into a floor of earth, this is what I have to go on. I am on my knees at first, a Jessica in prayer.
