Priestdaddy: A Memoir

by Patricia Lockwood

When I read, my head seemed to go diagonal, and I swore I saw things in the sentences—not what I was supposed to see. When I read the words “moonlit swim,” I saw the moonlight slicked all over the bare skin. The word “sunshine” had a washed look, with the sweep of a rag in the middle of it. The word “violinist” was a fig cut in half. “String quartet” was a cat’s cradle held between two hands. “Penniless” was an empty copper outline and “prettiness” seemed to glitter. “Calamity” was alarm bells, and in “aristocrat” there was the sharp triangle of a cravat, and in “sea serpent” one loop of the green muscle. It was as if I could read the surfaces of words, and their real hearts, but not their information. Even “word” had a picture—I saw a blond hostess in a spangled dress turning black and white letters over one by one. When I read, the meaning swam and the images leaped out and the words gave up their doubles. When I wrote, the same thing happened with the paper. “You start by thinking sideways,” I tell her. “First you sit in a sunlit room, and you look at the wall but really look through it, and you read your book but really read past it.” “Sounds like a recipe for insanity,” she interrupts, tipping back her head and pouring a barrage of chocolate-covered blueberries down her throat, all the while holding the wheel steady with one wrist. “Then pretend you’re washing your hair under warm water, and unfocus your vision like you’re trying to see a Magic Eye, and loosen up your...