Crossroads

by Jonathan Franzen

Already, after only two days, Perry wondered how a person even casually acquainted with cocaine could ever, for a moment, not be wondering if some of it might be close at hand; how the thought had managed to absent itself from her head.

Tiny treats, an air-conditioned car, a drink by the pool, an after-dinner cigarette, could get a person through her life.

She didn’t quite finish the book, but it didn’t matter. The dream of a novel was more resilient than other kinds of dreaming. It could be interrupted in mid-sentence and snapped back into later.