Wayfaring Stranger (Holland Family Saga, #1)

by James Lee Burke

I lay back down and closed my eyes and tried to lose myself inside the drumroll of the storm on the roof and the rain gutters spouting into the driveway, flowing like a river into the street, the surface of the water crosshatched with pine needles and green leaves and camellia petals, as though the earth were attempting to cleanse itself of the attrition caused by those who were supposedly its stewards.

But the people who lived in the small town by the chemical plants seemed to give little heed to the degradation of their environment and were thankful to have the jobs and the homes they did. I wondered again about the sacrificial nature of life, the collective triage we performed with regularity on our fellow man, and the wars and human attrition we accepted as the cost of our survival.

the dead lay strong claim on the quick and do not easily take leave of the earth.