Nick doesn’t seal the deal? Really? Bet he does. You need a sex scene? If he doesn’t fall for Jordan, surely he beds her. But he doesn’t fall because she’s a lightweight, because she’s dishonest and a cheater, and she, like Daisy, “smashes things up” and then “retreats into [her] vast carelessness.” She’s a fling, an erstwhile lover in a paired-up summer. She’s the hot but simple-minded blonde you meet while vacationing at your uncle’s: you gotta have her, but you don’t wanna keep her.

Best TGG line? “The lawn started at the beach and ran toward the front door for a quarter of a mile, jumping over sun-dials and brick walks and burning gardens – finally when it reached the house drifting up the side in bright vines as though from the momentum of its run.” Like to write me one sentence that vivid in my life…

hmmm…. i’d be curious to see writing that doesn’t seem to be seen through a lens. but i definitely agree on the distance. and as much as it his writing technique, i can’t help but think that this was his philosophy on life. hemmie was a poet constantly shifting the world through his lens… he would fish and not quite let himself get caught up in his excitement, but rather, feel his excitement and go about noticing the things that led up to it, the things he felt, and the reactions of those around him as the fish would come in… i feel like as a writer, he forced that sense of removal. it’s almost a buddhist-like meditation. you see your thoughts and feelings, and experience them, but you watch them go by as a flowing stream. and with that, you aren’t swimming in them, but existing just outside.

whether or not he was trying to do this, or failing at doing something else and ending up with this… i dunno. but this is why i like reading him, and why forcing myself through pages of misogynistic banter is sometimes worth it.

anyway. you’re one of my favorites right now.