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2ba8654
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In Florida, her father had once said at dinner: "I like Negroes, yessir. I think everyone should own one". She had stormed from the table and stayed in her room for two days. Her dinner was slid under the door. Well, not slid under. Handed around the doorknob. Seventeen and about to go off to college. "Tell Daddy I'm not coming out until he apologizes". And he did. Clomped up the curving staircase. Held her in his big round southern arms an..
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Colum McCann |
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69f03c0
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Mornings in the kitchen, afternoons in the counseling room, evenings out combing streets of half-lamplight: Hermann Park, Montrose, Sunnyside, Hiram Clarke, the Fifth Ward.
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Colum McCann |
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b6c5408
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Nothing was simple, certainly not simplification.
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poverty
simplification
order
simple
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Colum McCann |
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9068ad7
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So many things are unexplainable, and how is it that we know a life, except that we know our own, and it is brought into focus by the death of those around us." (less)"
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Colum McCann |
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f6d636a
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A good doctor. He would not let her take pills. Try each day just to laugh a little bit, it's a good medicine, he said. Pills were a second option. I should have taken them. No. Better off to try laughing. Die laughing.
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Colum McCann |
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4402bf4
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not many follicles among the oracles.
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Colum McCann |
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1e89ffb
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How long ago it was and how strange, but all dead friends come to life again sometimes.
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Colum McCann |
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49fa3fe
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Rather he consoled himself with the fact that, in the real world, when he looked closely into the darkness he might find the presence of a light, damaged and bruised, but a little light all the same. He wanted, quite simply, for the world to be a better place, and he was in the habit of hoping for it. Out of that came some sort of triumph that went beyond theological proof, a cause for
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Colum McCann |
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ea253e6
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He was aware that the essence of proper intelligence was the embrace of contradiction. And the recognition of complexity was to be balanced against the need for simplicity
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Colum McCann |
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9daeb0a
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Everything falls into the hands of music eventually. The only thing that ever rescued me was listening to a big voice.
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Colum McCann |
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a5d7a67
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nwyd armsh byshtr z mkhft zndgy dwm myawrd.
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زندگی
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Colum McCann |
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5231bb6
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She could feel the coolness, a whole childhood of it, falling through her. Rain on the coral beach in Galway. White tennis balls on the broken court. Her brother at his shortwave radio. A nest of wires and voices. Her father's cattle huddled on a laneway. The broken church bell. A grass verge of green in the laneway. High windows. Too tall for the school chairs. The milk came in small silver cans. She would not cry or whimper. She had alway..
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Colum McCann |
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5fdcc66
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They inherited it all. The curse of privilege. Janitors for the ambitions of the dead.
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privilege
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Colum McCann |
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7f65729
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banging saucepans to ring in the new year?
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Colum McCann |
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3d11251
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The detectives slide back on the digital timeline to the moment when Mendelssohn steps out into the snowstorm: there is something of the Greek epic about it, the old gray man with his walking stick, venturing out, into the snow, out of frame and away, like an ancient word stepping off a page.
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Colum McCann |
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acfc4ef
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She's always thought that one of the beauties of New York is that you can be from anywhere and within moments of landing it is yours.
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Colum McCann |
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cfd4720
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If you start forgetting you're already lost.
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Colum McCann |
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51d01d7
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Sure, I ached for the backroads of my hometown in Missouri, but leaving behind a scholarship would've been a defeat for my folks, who had no idea what it was like for me--they who thought their little girl was up north learning the truth of America in the sort of place where a young woman could cross the thresholds of the rich. They told me that my southern charm would get me by. My father wrote letters that began: My Little Glorious. I wro..
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Colum McCann |
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44f19ce
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tmm jngh, hr jngy, Hmqt byHdwmrz nsn r myrsnd.
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جنگ
حماقت
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Colum McCann |
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d849e8f
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Bushmills was a Protestant whiskey. Jameson for Catholics.
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Colum McCann |
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6ec0a8f
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byd bnwysd, yn mshkhly st khh dr snyn bl pysh myayd, Hss r bh khTr my awryd, m trykh r nh. gr trykh r pyd khnyd, Hss r z dst khwhyd dd.
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تاریخ
سن
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Colum McCann |
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5db6c2e
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I know already that I will return to this day whenever I want to. I can bid it alive. Preserve it. There is a still point where the present, the now, winds around itself, and nothing is tangled. The river is not where it begins or ends, but right in the middle point, anchored by what has happened and what is to arrive.
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Colum McCann |
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59252a4
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w zmn chh Zlmnh mytzd, wqty dr Tlb an hsty mDyqh mykhnd w anghkhh bh an nyzy ndry frwn myshwd.
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Colum McCann |
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fe19f82
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she wondered if she owned a faint idea of many things, and a strong idea of only a few. As if she had developed an immunity to depth. That she only, now, skimmed the surface.
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depth
opinion
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Colum McCann |
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f4e5298
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Maybe she should meet other women, more of her own. But more of her own what? Death, the greatest democracy of them all. The world's oldest complaint. Happens to us all. Rich and poor. Fat and thin. Fathers and daughters. Mothers and sons. She feels a pang, a return. Dear Mother, this is just to say that I have arrived safely, the first began. And then at the end he was writing, Mama, this place is a nothing place, take all the places and g..
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Colum McCann |
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74069f9
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What Corrigan wanted was a fully believable God, one you could find in the grime of the everyday. The comfort he got from the hard, cold truth--the filth, the war, the poverty--was that life could be capable of small beauties. He wasn't interested in the glorious tales of the afterlife or the notions of a honey-soaked heaven. To him that was a dressing room for hell. Rather he consoled himself with the fact that, in the real world, when he ..
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Colum McCann |
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5b8ca25
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nshstn dr skhwty khwdkhwsth bhtr z skhwty tHmyly st.
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Colum McCann |
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1ae8588
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w khsy chh mydnd dr ps ykh zndgy, zndgy dygry dr jryn st.
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Colum McCann |
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3850cb6
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drkh m z zndgy dygrn drwq` hmn drkhy st khh z zndgy khwdmn drym w yn Hqyqty st khh b mrg Trfynmn brjsth myshwd.
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مرگ
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Colum McCann |
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c2e48de
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Things happen. We had not wanted them to happen. They had arisen out of the ashes of chance.
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Colum McCann |
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a03c753
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Everything had purpose, signal, meaning.
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Colum McCann |