More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
The nurses in Willow Glen didn’t try to prevent death. But they did try to guide you to die in the right way. Because if you died from something you weren’t supposed to die from, families became suspicious. The nurses here were kind. They meant well. Or at least they did at first, when they were new. It was the institution that was the problem. All the rules. The nurses were human, but the rules were not. Those PBS nature documentaries they showed in the common room said all life aimed toward reproduction. At Willow Glen, all life aimed toward avoiding litigation. Everything was charted. If a
...more
When you do the Freddie, the Chicken, the Twist, even on a crowded dance floor, you do them by yourself. They aren’t allowed to touch each other and so they dance alone. They perform the dances that fit exactly what their chaperones want of them. They are told how to dance and they respond like proper bureaucrats, is what Faye thinks now as she watches all her classmates. They are happy, satisfied, soon-to-be-graduates, pro-authoritarian, their parents support the war, they have color televisions. When Chubby Checker says, “Take me by my little hand and go like this,” he is telling her
...more
a trombone makes that splatty-fart noise only a trombone is capable of.
The barometer for the health of the country seemed to be what middle-aged men thought about the behavior of college girls.
The music was not hummable, was not really even danceable, but was excellent to kiss to. And it was fun until the guy unbuttoned his pants and said, “Would you do something with your mouth?” That the guy couldn’t even ask for it correctly, couldn’t even name the thing he wanted, was, she thought, pathetic. He seemed surprised when she said so. “I thought you were liberated,” he said, by which he meant that she should indulge all his various wants and like it.
