We’re in a lokanta, a restaurant, and I am, as usual, the only woman. One man eating alone is waving a chicken leg above his head, in a kind of ecstasy. Hashish, Cengiz whispers, he is stupid man. He walks me to my hotel and deposits me at the front door which is locked. Mr. Yapar, wearing a Perry Como sweater over his pajamas, sleepily answers the bell and lets me in. A disinclined Cengiz walks away fast, as if he’s got a late date. With the married woman who’s available at strange hours.
Chapter 15. Postscript
On the back of a color photograph of Vietnamese high-school girls bicycling in Hanoi: Dear Clara, I meant to telephone you before I left Barcelona. I hope you’re well. There’s nothing like Gaudi’s buildings, or you and Gregor. I hope I was of some help on your memoirs, but I don’t think I was. All my best to you. Love.
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About the Author
Lynne Tillman (New York, NY) is the author of five novels, three collections of short stories, one collection of essays and two other nonfiction books. She collaborates often with artists and writes regularly on culture, and her fiction is anthologized widely. Her novels include American Genius, A Comedy (2006), No Lease on Life (1998) which was a New York Times Notable Book of 1998 and a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, Cast in Doubt (1992), Motion Sickness (1991), and Haunted Houses (1987). The Broad Picture (1997) collected Tillman’s essays, which were published in literary and art periodicals. She is the Fiction Editor at Fence Magazine, Professor and Writer-in-Residence in the Department of English at the University at Albany, and a recent recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship.
About the book, and a letter from the publisher
This is a Red Lemonade book, also available in all reasonably possible formats: in limited artisan-produced editions, in trade paperback editions, and in all current digital editions, as well as online at the Red Lemonade publishing community.
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Richard Nash