I first read this printed on the bible paper of Volume E of the Norton Anthology of American Literature. It was the first year of my English degree, and I was too tight and too skint to buy my own. Luckily, a flatmate in my halls of residence jacked in the course after the first week. She left her full complement of Nortons stacked on our kitchen table, with a note instructing me to “take these – or burn them, whatever”. Anyway, I’m not one for memorising anything but, I think if challenged I might be able to recite whole swathes of this off-book. Every time I read it, I get the distinct impression that these lines have been running in my head all the while.
First published in The New Yorker in 1961. Collected in Sixty Stories, 1984, and The Norton Anthology of American Literature, Volume E, Norton, 2002
A Personal Anthology 