Gabrielle Zevin

“I think you mean a public failure. Because we all fail in private. I failed with you, for example, but no one posted an online review about it, unless you did. I fail with my wife and with my son. I fail in my work every day, but I keep turning over the problems until I’m not failing anymore. But public failures are different, it’s true.”

She can usually find something positive to say about a book or, failing that, the cover or, failing that, the author or, failing that, the author’s website

bona fide alcoholic.”

“Someone stole Tamerlane,” A.J. says.

“What’s Tamerlane?”

“It’s a book. It’s a very valuable book.”

“To clarify. You mean someone shoplifted a book from the store.”

“No. It was my book from my personal collection. It is an extremely rare collection of poems by Edgar Allan Poe.”

She asks A.J. about his lifestyle. He answers the question truthfully. “I’m not what you’d call an alcoholic, but I do like to drink until I pass out at least once a week. I smoke occasionally and I subsist on a diet of frozen entrees. I rarely floss. I used to be a long-distance runner, but now I don’t exercise at all. I live alone and I lack meaningful personal relationships. Since my wife died, I hate my work, too.”

Do you want to die?”

A response doesn’t immediately occur to him.

“Because if you really want to die, I can put you under psychiatric observation.”

“I don’t want to die,” A.J. says after a bit. “I just find it difficult to be here all the time. Do you think I’m crazy?”

feeling under the weather

Come, thou monarch of the vine

in combination with the sedative is mellowing

My wife’s sister, Ismay, teaches at the high school