Saturday, August 25, 2007

Relationships that are Hit and Miss

Anne Tyler, in If Morning Ever Comes, writes about Ben Joe who is a student in New York calling his mother back in the family home in South Carolina.

Following the telephone call Tyler writes:

“… he felt confused and uncertain, as if he and his family were a set of square dancers coming to clap the palms of their hands to each others’, only their hands missed by inches and encountered nothing.”

Anne Tyler, If Morning Ever Comes (New York: Berkeley Books, 1983; first edition, 1964), 20.

Image: “…a set of square dancers coming to clap the palms of their hands to each others’, only their hands missed by inches…”