Contents
I. Neighbors
I Observe This Morphic Field
Domestic Interior
Private School
Bougainvillea
Neighbors in Their Own Bunkers
How Could We Decorate a Haunted House?
Calm Down!
Library
Saying Good-bye to the World War II Generation
No Irish Need Apply
Massachusetts
II. Education
“Liking Something Is Not Enough”
Diagnosis: Psychosis
Time, Waste of
See, e.g., Hildegarde, Fatima, Blake, McLuhan
Invective
Prescription Pills
Snobs
Marble Obelisk
Education
III. Folie à Deux
Pension, Venezia
Ten Years
The Temper
The Alcoholic and the Ball and Chain
Legal Separation
John Barleycorn
After the End, Hope for the Beginning
Peace
IV. Not Too Serious
Self-Portrait at the End of the First Half of My Life
Not Too Serious
The Staff Lounge
The Divorce of Mr. and Mrs. Moore
Camp
The Satanists Next Door
Supervision
Husbandry
Dolphins
Roommates: Noblesse Oblige, Sprezzatura, and Gin Lane
The Family Jewels
V. The Mother
Hope for the Hopeless
Indoors
The Devouring Father
Keeping
Coloring Book
St. Dymphna
Black and White
“The Abyss Stares Back at You”
The World Will Ask for Your Greed, Envy, and Sloth
Good-bye
Souls in Purgatory
The Mother Becomes the Mother of Herself as Well
Notes
Acknowledgments