The Rumor

by Elin Hilderbrand

Every life contains a novel

Love in the Time of Cholera, by García Márquez.

“Have you ever read Nabokov?” Benton asked. “Lolita

Goodbye, Columbus by Philip Roth?

“Any Salinger?” “Catcher in the Rye

Franny and Zooey

“Have you read any Hemingway? The Sun Also Rises? Andre Dubus the father? God, now that man was a genius. Have you read any Updike?”

Have you read Edith Wharton? The Age of Innocence? The House of Mirth

John O’Hara’s An Appointment in Samarra

“Truman Capote, Breakfast at Tiffany’s? Richard Russo? Peter Taylor, The Old Forest? Carson McCullers? What about any of the Russians? Tolstoy? Chekhov? Kafka? Isaac Babel?”