On Wit's End

Karen Joy Fowler, Wit's End

- Addison had lived much of her adult life faintly convinced that a large segment of the reading public and the entire new industry would be really happy if she died in some bizarre and puzzling way. -

- Even at six Addison had known that she was pretending to be more childlike than she was...Her mother wished her to be thinking of fairies and dewdrops, but she was already the knives-and-curses type. You can tell me anything, her mother used to say, and then respond to anything she was told with disappointment or alarm. So Addison was compelled into a life of deceit and charade, which is what always happens whenever honesty if forced upon someone. -

- In telling the story to Rima and Tilda, her point was a different one. Sometimes something happens to you, she said, and there's no way to be the person you were before. You won't ever be that person again; that person's gone. There's a little freedom in every loss, no matter how unwelcome and unhappy that freedom may be. -

- As was often the case with his columns, Rima preferred the unedited version. She didn't much like the man in the column, with his peaceful, grateful death. She didn't like how he didn't say a word about the loss of his young wife, is only son, but claimed instead to have lived a lucky life. Or at least compared with most. -

- You think I'm real just because I'm sitting across from you. -