Relief

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

Page 19 of 88 · 20 per page

• From Bright Lights, Big City (1984)

  Wade has one about an inventor who has just received his hundredth patent, for a rotary nose-hair clipping device. Wade gets the inventor on the phone and learns that he was also responsible for the automatic toilet-bowl cleaning revolution, although the big companies stole the idea out from under him and made millions. He gives Wade a long account of this injustice and then says he can’t discuss the matter because it’s under litigation. All this should be wonderfully diverting, yet there is a forced quality to your laughter. You find it hard to listen to what other people are saying, or to understand the words of the article on which you are ostensibly working. You read the same paragraph over and over, trying to remember the difference between a matter of fact and a matter of opinion. Should you call up the president of the Polar Explorers and ask if it’s true that someone was wearing a headdress made out of walrus skin? Does it matter? And why does the spelling of Triscuit look so strange? You keep watching the door for Clara. Odd phrases of French run through your brain. The first thing to do is call the writer and get from him the number of someone who can confirm that such a society exists, that it had a reception at the hotel mentioned, on the date mentioned, that this is a matter of fact and not fiction. Names are named. You must find out if these names belong to real people and, if so, how they are spelled. Rittenhouse announces that he’s just had a call from Clara, who is sick and won’t be in: the reprieve you have been waiting for. The boa constrictor wrapped around your heart eases its grip. Who knows? The illness might prove serious. “Actually,” Rittenhouse continues, “what she said is that she would not be in this morning . She’s not certain if she will be feeling well enough to come in this afternoon. She can’t say at this point.” He pauses and tugs on his glasses, considering whether further qualification is necessary, and then concludes, “Anyone wishing to consult her may call her at home.” You ask Rittenhouse if there are any messages. “Nothing specific,” he answers. Here is your chance to redeem yourself. A day’s work might pull you into the clear with the French piece. You could get the guys in Typesetting to cut you a few hours’ slack on the deadline. You could get the Penguin thing out of the way in half an hour and then buckle down to it. Alors! Vite, vite! Allons-y! An hour later, the Polar Explorers are put to bed. It’s a little after noon, and your energy is flagging. What you need is some lunch to set you right. Return to the French elections with renewed vigor. Maybe pick up une baguette with ham and Brie to get you into the proper frame of mind.

• From Zami: A New Spelling of My Name (1982)

  I stood on the corner of Second Avenue waiting for the bus. Already, even though the weather was still quite warm, the days were getting visibly shorter. The pain of the early summer had dulled. I had never before wanted a summer to end, but now, the bleakness of this year’s approaching winter seemed like a relief. The bus door opened and I placed my foot upon the step. Quite suddenly, there was music swelling up into my head, as if a choir of angels had boarded the Second Avenue bus directly in front of me. They were singing the last chorus of an old spiritual of hope: Gonna die this death on Cal—va—ryyyyy BUT AIN’T GONNA DIE NO MORE…! Their voices sweet and powerful over the din of Second Avenue traffic. I stood transfixed on the lower step of the bus. “Hey girlie, your fare!” I shook myself and dropped my two coins into the fare-box. The music was still so real I looked around me in amazement as I stumbled to a seat. Almost no one else was in the late-morning bus, and the few people who were there were quite ordinarily occupied and largely silent. Again the angelic orchestration swelled, filling my head with the sharpness and precision of the words; the music was like a surge of strength. It felt rich with hope and a promise of life-more importantly, a new way through or beyond pain. The physical realities of the dingy bus slid away from me. I suddenly stood upon a hill in the center of an unknown country, hearing the sky fill with a new spelling of my own name. Muriel moved out of Seventh Street the same way she had moved in, in trickles. She packed the last of her books just before Christmas. I came home from school one night and she was there, come to finish packing. Muriel had fallen asleep in her clothes on the couch. This was where she used to sit and write until dawn whenever she couldn’t sleep, that last winter we were together. Her arm was raised against the light. On the back of one of her hands she had doodled a little pattern of stick-figure daisies, the way children write upon themselves when they are bored or lonely. The lamplight shone down upon her form in a tight circle, illuminating her as vulnerable and untouched. Looking down at Muriel asleep in the light, even after all of the pain and anger, a remembered love at the core of me made my heart move. She opened her eyes, asked me what I was looking at. “Nothing,” I answered, turning away, not wanting another angry exchange. She was not my creation. She had never been my creation.

• From Bright Lights, Big City (1984)

  The point is, you have not followed standard procedure, which by this time should be second nature to you, which procedure is thoroughly outlined in your manual, which procedure is the net result of many years of collective labor, and proper application of which ensures that, insofar as possible, errors of fact do not appear in this magazine.” Clara is red in the face. Although Wade claims she has recently taken up jogging, her wind is lousy. “Do you have anything to say for yourself?” “I don’t think so.” “This isn’t the first time. I’ve given you the benefit of the doubt before. You seem unable to perform the duties required for this job.” You’re not about to take issue with anything she says. You would confess to all of the crimes detailed in the Post today in exchange for an exit visa. You nod your head gravely. “I’d like to hear what you have to say.” “I assume I’m fired.” She looks surprised. She drums her fingers on the desk and glowers. You’re pleased that her hands are shaking. “That’s correct,” she says at last. “Effective immediately.” “Anything else?” you say, and when she doesn’t answer you stand up to go. Your legs are trembling, but you don’t think she notices. “I’m sorry,” she says as you open the door. In a stall of the Men’s Room you wait for composure to return. Despite your relief, and your feeling that you got no worse than you expected, your hands are twitching to the beat of your knees. Pointlessly exploring your pockets, you come up with a small glass vial, Tad’s gift. In terms of improving your mood, this might be just what the doctor ordered. Or precisely not; bad medicine. You shake a healthy snort onto the back of your hand. Lifting hand to face, you lose your grip on the vial, which drops with sickening accuracy into the toilet bowl, bounces once against the porcelain and then submerges with an insolent splash that resembles the sound of a very large brown trout spitting out the hook of a very small and painstakingly presented dry fly. Maybe this isn’t your day. You should’ve checked your horoscope in the Post . • • • Huddled around Rittenhouse’s desk, the others fall silent when you return. “Well?” Megan says. Though your knees are still shaking, you have this strange feeling of omnipotence. You could dive out the window and fly over the rooftops. You could pick up your desk with one hand. Your former colleagues carry the stamp of oppression on their brows. “It’s been nice working with you.” “They didn’t,” Megan says. “They couldn’t.” “They did.” “What exactly did she say,” Rittenhouse asks. “The gist of it is that I’m fired.” “They can’t do that,” Megan says. “Perhaps we could take your case to the employee arbitration committee,” Rittenhouse says. “As you know, I’m a member of the committee.” You shake your head.

• From Thinking, Fast and Slow (2011)

  tendency to answer questions with the first idea that comes to their mind, without checking it. Shane Frederick’s Cognitive Reflection Test consists of the bat-and-ball problem and two others, all chosen because they evoke an immediate intuitive answer that is incorrect. The other two items in the CRT are: If it takes 5 machines 5 minutes to make 5 widgets, how long would it take 100 machines to make 100 widgets? 100 minutes OR 5 minutes In a lake, there is a patch of lily pads. Every day, the patch doubles in size. If it takes 48 days for the patch to cover the entire lake, how long would it take for the patch to cover half of the lake? 24 days OR 47 days The correct answers to both problems are in a footnote at the bottom of the page. * The experimenters recruited 40 Princeton students to take the CRT. Half of them saw the puzzles in a small font in washed-out gray print. The puzzles were legible, but the font induced cognitive strain. The results tell a clear story: 90% of the students who saw the CRT in normal font made at least one mistake in the test, but the proportion dropped to 35% when the font was barely legible. You read this correctly: performance was better with the bad font. Cognitive strain, whatever its source, mobilizes System 2, which is more likely to reject the intuitive answer suggested by System 1. The Pleasure of Cognitive Ease An article titled “Mind at Ease Puts a Smile on the Face” describes an experiment in which participants were briefly shown pictures of objects. Some of these pictures were made easier to recognize by showing the outline of the object just before the complete image was shown, so briefly that the contours were never noticed. Emotional reactions were measured by recording electrical impulses from facial muscles, registering changes of expression that are too slight and too brief to be detectable by observers. As expected, people showed a faint smile and relaxed brows when the pictures were easier to see. It appears to be a feature of System 1 that cognitive ease is associated with good feelings. As expected, easily pronounced words evoke a favorable attitude.

• From Holy Ghost Girl (2012)

  I don’t want to make things worse.”I slipped to the side of the platform and watched him walk to the middle of the stage. He beckoned people to move in closer. “Those of you who can hear me, come on up to the front. I can’t use the microphone. Everyone, move on in here.”Brother Cotton didn’t sugarcoat it. “They’ve taken Brother Terrell to jail.”Silence.“I know how y’all feel. But I’m not in despair. And don’t you be either. We’re gonna go right on holding services. We’ll let you know when we hear news of Brother Terrell. We’re going to rest a bit now, but we’ll be back in a couple of hours to carry on the night service, and we’ll be here tomorrow morning, tomorrow afternoon, and tomorrow night. The devil may have pulled the plug on our PA system, but he can’t shut us up. Amen? Can y’all hear me out there?”Someone yelled no and Brother Cotton laughed. “Well, come on back tonight, and I’ll say a lot more you can’t hear.”Brother Cotton stayed at the little trailer behind the tent to prepare for the evening service and the rest of us—Laverne, Betty Ann, the baby, Mama, and the four of us kids—went home for a couple of hours. The house was quieter than a three-bedroom house with eight people in it should be. Betty Ann took the baby and retreated behind the door of her bedroom. Pam and Randall and Gary and I scrubbed the day’s dirt off, dressed for the evening service, and made peanut-butter sandwiches for dinner. There were no fights and no play either. Three weeks of waiting for the worst had finally worn us out. Brother Cotton walked up and down the aisles, yelling at the top of his lungs without a microphone that night. When his voice played out, he grabbed the four offering buckets from a back corner of the platform and held them, two in each hand, in front of the prayer ramp. People began to sing, “What you give to the Lord, give it in Jesus’s name, and he will give you some more.” They waited in line to give money and they filled the buckets twice. Two days later Richland County set Brother Terrell free. A newspaper photograph shows him smiling for the cameras, riding on the shoulders of followers as they carry him away from the jail. He told reporters he harbored no hard feelings, that the whole thing was a misunderstanding. He said the revival had been such a success he was going to enlarge his tent to seat another twenty-five hundred people. The judge survived, though some believers still contend he died within the month. “Touch not my anointing, touch not my anointing,” they mumbled, underscoring the biblical warning with meaningful looks only they could decipher. Chapter TwelveSAWDUST-TRAIL PREACHERS LOVED TO BRAG ABOUT THEIR TENT SIZE. During the nineteen-forties, Oral Roberts claimed his tent was the world’s largest.

• From Holy Ghost Girl (2012)

  “Maybe Jesus expects you to use wisdom.”Betty Ann put one hand on Brother Terrell’s shoulder. “Honey, you ready for this steak?” In her other hand she held a platter on which rested a piece of meat bigger than her face.Pam chimed in. “Yeah, Daddy, you want that steak?”Betty Ann forked the meat onto his platter and he added bacon, a sausage patty, and two more biscuits covered with Mama’s tomato gravy. He chewed through it all, mouth open, slowing down only to sop the leftover grease, butter, and egg yolk with two more biscuits.A whoop came from the doorway. “Daddy, you’re eating!” Randall jogged to the table, belly swaying. “We thought God was gonna take you.” He stood by his dad and draped an arm about his shoulders.“I thought he was, too, son. Guess he ain’t done with me yet.” He let go a long, satisfied belch.“Y’all got some cream to go in that coffee I smell? I ain’t had coffee in months.”“I’ll get it, Daddy.” Pam jumped up and dragged her chair to the counter. She climbed onto the chair, lifted the percolator with both hands, filled the cup, and with slow, measured steps, walked it to her father. Brother Terrell flashed her a smile and took the cup. He scooped spoonful after spoonful of sugar into the coffee and poured in the cream. He lifted the cup to his nose and breathed in the aroma, took a long slurp, and set the mostly empty cup back down.His eyes rolled back in his head and he drew a deep breath of satisfaction. “I feel like I’ve died and gone to heaven.”The next instant, Brother Terrell opened his eyes wide and pointed toward the living room. “My God, my God. It’s an angel of the Lord, right here in this house.” His voice was a whisper.A small figure stood in a shaft of light that poured through the living-room window.It was Gary. Mama and Laverne groaned.Brother Terrell slapped his knees and laughed. “I had y’all that time.”Gary moved toward us, rubbing his eyes. “What? What?”Mama stretched out her arms. “It’s nothing. Come here, honey.”He toddled over to her. I cupped my hand over my mouth and leaned toward Randall. “He don’t look like no angel to me.”Unsettled by the attention, Gary asked again, “What?”Mama glared at me and reached down to pick him up. “It’s okay, honey. Brother Terrell said you were an angel.”A big grin spread across my three-year-old brother’s face. “An angel.”Mama picked the sleep from Gary’s eyes. “Let’s go wash your face.”Mama stepped into the living room with Gary on her hip as Brother Terrell cleared his throat. It was what he always did when he had something important to say. “Listen, I need to tell y’all something. Carolyn, can you come on back in here? In the trailer last night, I had a vision.”Mama let Gary slide down her body until his feet touched the floor. Three quick steps and she was back in the kitchen.

• From Middlesex (2002)

  "Okay," he said, "I'm listening." And the caller hung up. "Once upon a time in ancient Greece, there was an enchanted pool ..." I could do it in my sleep now. I was asleep, considering our back- stage festivities, the flowing Averna, the tranquilizing smoke. Hal- loween had come and gone. Thanksgiving, too, and then Christmas. On New Year's, Bob Presto threw a big party. Zora and I drank champagne. When it was time for my act, I plunged into the pool. I was high, drunk, and so that night did something I didn't normally do. I opened my eyes underwater. I saw the faces looking back at me and I saw that they were not appalled. I had fun in the tank that night. It was all beneficial in some way. It was therapeutic. Inside Her- maphroditus old tensions were roiling, trying to work themselves out. Traumas of the locker room were being released. Shame over having a body unlike other bodies was passing away. The monster feeling was fading. And along with shame and self-loathing another hurt was healing. Hermaphroditus was beginning to forget about the Obscure Object. In my last weeks in San Francisco I read everything Zora gave me, trying to educate myself. I learned what varieties we hermaphrodites came in. I read about hyperadrenocorticism and feminizing testes and something called cryptorchidism, which applied to me. I read 494 about Klinefelter's Syndrome, where an extra X chromosome renders a person tall, eunuchoid, and temperamentally unpleasant. I was more interested in historical than medical material. From Zora's manuscript I became acquainted with the hijras of India, the kwolu- (mtmwols of the Sambia in Papua New Guinea, and the guevedoche of the Dominican Republic. Karl Heinrich Ulrichs, writing in Germany in 1860, spoke of das dritte Geschlecht, the third gender. He called himself a Uranist and believed that he had a female soul in a male body. Many cultures on earth operated not with two genders but with three. And the third was always special, exalted, endowed with mystical gifts. One cold drizzly night I gave it a try. Zora was out. It was a Sun- day and we were off work. I sat in a half-lotus position on the floor and closed my eyes. Concentrating, prayerful, I waited for my soul to leave my body. I tried to fall into a trance state or become an animal. I did my best, but nothing happened. As far as special powers went, I didn't seem to have any. A Tiresias I wasn't.

• From Looking for Alaska (2005)

  Now, I don’t believe in epiphanies, but all I can say is this: I woke up the next morning feeling a little better, and in the years since, I have never felt quite as bad as I did before watching Harvey . The medication and therapy did most of the heavy lifting, I’m sure, but Elwood played his part. Within two weeks, I was back in Chicago, back at work, back to being pestered by Ilene about my story. At night and on the weekends, I wrote. On March 1, 2002, I handed Ilene forty single-spaced pages. It was a confusing jumble and only a few paragraphs actually made it to the final book. But Ilene saw potential and worked with me through many drafts over the next year, and then submitted it to publishers on my behalf. Dutton bought it, and after a few months in limbo, Julie Strauss-Gabel eventually became my editor (and has been ever since). Looking for Alaska still had a long way to go: There was no labyrinth of suffering in the manuscript that Julie first read, and no Great Perhaps. But Julie helped me to discover the novel I wanted to write—a story of what theologians call “radical hope,” the idea that hope is available to all of us at all times, even unto death. I hope you like this little book. If you do, know that it wasn’t because of me. It was because my parents welcomed me home, because Harvey portrayed mental illness as more than merely tragic, because Ilene and Julie believed in my work and devoted years to this novel, and because readers have read it with care and generosity for now more than a decade. So that’s the story of my Great Perhaps. Thanks for being part of it. [image file=Image00008.jpg] A CONVERSATION WITH JOHN GREENBelow you’ll find answers to some of the questions I’ve been asked most often by readers in the years since Looking for Alaska was published. I’m always happy to answer questions about my intent when writing the story, but with the caveat that authorial intent is not that important. If you find something useful or true in a story, it is useful and true regardless of whether the author put it there on purpose. —JG What inspired using “Alaska” as the name Alaska chooses for herself? The idea initially came to me while watching the movie The Royal Tenenbaums , which features “Stephanie Says,” a Velvet Underground song I’d loved in high school. Part of the chorus goes, “She’s not afraid to die / The people all call her Alaska.” I liked the name Alaska because it’s grand and mysterious and far away. It’s part of our country, but for most of us it’s a distant and mythologized part, in much the same way that Alaska herself is (disastrously) mythologized by her classmates. I also liked it because of what it actually means.

• From Middlesex (2002)

  In 1960, Dr. Nishan Philobosian was seventy-four. He had a camel's head, drooping on its neck, with all the activity in the cheeks. White hair surrounded his otherwise bald head in a nimbus and plugged his big ears like cotton. His surgeon's eyeglasses had rectan- gular loupes attached. He began with my neck, searching for cretinous folds. He counted my fingers and toes. He inspected my palate; he noted my Moro reflex without surprise. He checked my backside for a sacral tail. Then, putting me on my back again, he took hold of each of my curved legs and pulled them apart. What did he see? The clean, saltwater mussel of the female geni- talia. The area inflamed, swollen with hormones. That touch of the baboon all babies have. Dr. Philobosian would have had to pull the folds apart to see any better, but he didn't. Because right at that in- stant Nurse Rosalee (for whom the moment was also destiny) acci- dentally touched his arm. Dr. Phil looked up. Presbyopic, Armenian eyes met middle-aged, Appalachian ones. The gaze lingered, then broke away. Five minutes old, and already the themes of my life chance and sex— announced themselves. Nurse Rosalee blushed. "Beautiful," Dr. Philobosian said, meaning me but looking at his as- sistant. "A beautiful, healthy girl." On Seminole, the birth celebrations were tempered by the prospect of death. Desdemona had found Lefty on our kitchen floor, lying next to his overturned coffee cup. She knelt beside him and pressed an ear to his chest. When she heard no heartbeat, she cried out his name. Her wail echoed off the kitchen's hard surfaces: the toaster, the oven, the refrigerator. Finally she collapsed on his chest. In the silence that fol- lowed, however, Desdemona felt a strange emotion rising inside her. It spread in the space between her panic and grief. It was like a gas in- flating her. Soon her eyes snapped open as she recognized the emo- tion: it was happiness. Tears were running down her face, she was 216 already berating God for taking her husband from her, but on the other side of these proper emotions was an altogether improper re- lief. The worst had happened. This was it: the worst thing. For the first time in her life my grandmother had nothing to worry about. Emotions, in my experience, aren't covered by single words. I don't believe in "sadness," "joy," or "regret." Maybe the best proof

• From Middlesex (2002)

  Then it was showtime. One priest flicked a switch. The bottom tier of the enormous chandelier blazed on. From behind the icono- stasis Father Mike entered. He was wearing a bright turquoise robe with a red heart embroidered on his back. He crossed the solea and came down among the parishioners. The smoke from his censer rose and curled, fragrant with antiquity. "Kyrie eleison" Father Mike sang. "Kyrie eleison? And though the words meant nothing to me, or al- most nothing, I felt their weight, the deep groove they made in the air of time. Tessie crossed herself, thinking about Chapter Eleven. 357 First Father Mike did the left side of the church. In blue waves, incense rolled over the gathered heads. It dimmed the circular lights of the chandelier. It aggravated the widows' lung conditions. It sub- dued the brightness of my cousins' suits. As it wrapped me in its dry- ice blanket, I breathed it in and began to pray myself. Please God let Dr. Bauer not find anything wrong with me. And let me be just friends with the Object. And don't let her forget about me while we're in Turkey. And help my mother not to be so worried about my brother. And make Chapter Eleven go back to college. Incense serves a variety of purposes in the Orthodox church. Sym- bolically, it's an offering to God. Like the burnt sacrifices in pagan times, the fragrance drifts upward to heaven. Before the days of mod- ern embalming, incense had a practical application. It covered the smell of corpses during funerals. It can also, when inhaled in suffi- cient amounts, create a lightheadedness that feels like religious rev- erie. And if you breathe in enough of it, it can make you sick. "What's the matter?" Tessie's voice in my ear. "You look pale." I stopped praying and opened my eyes. "I do?" "Do you feel okay?" I began to answer in the affirmative. But then I stopped myself. "You look really pale, Callie," Tessie said again. She touched her hand to my forehead. Sickness, reverie, devotion, deceit— they all came together. If God doesn't help you, you have to help yourself. "It's my stomach," I said. "What have you been eating?" "Or not exactiy my stomach. It's lower down." "Do you feel faint?" Father Mike passed by again. He swung the censer so high it nearly touched the tip of my nose. And I widened my nostrils and breathed in as much smoke as possible to make myself even paler than I already was. "It's like somebody's twisting something inside me," I hazarded. Which must have been more or less right. Because Tessie was now smiling. "Oh, honey," she said. "Oh, thank God." "You're happy I'm sick? Thanks a lot." "You're not sick, honey." 358 "Then what am I? I don't feel good. It hurts? My mother took my hand, still beaming. "Hurry, hurry," she said. "We don't want an accident."

• From The Greatest Controversies of Early Christian History (2013)

  e As you recall, Thomas had been purchased as a slave to work for the king of India as a carpenter. The king gives Thomas a large sum of money to build a palace, but Thomas distributes the money to the poor. Thomas then tells the king that the palace is almost complete, but he needs more money to construct the roof; again, he distributes the money to the poor. e The king returms to the city to see the palace, but his friends tell him that Thomas has not built anything and has distributed all the money to the poor. The king has Thomas arrested and decides to have him flogged and burned to death. e Then, the king’s brother, Gad, falls ill and dies. Angels take the soul of Gad to heaven, where he sees the palace that Thomas has been building for his brother. Gad is allowed to return to life to buy this heavenly palace from his brother, the king. The king realizes that the good works Thomas has done by distributing his money to the 122 Scanned by CamScanner poor have gone to his credit, and he will have a blessed afterlife if he becomes a follower of Jesus, which he does. Thecla and Paul e The other Acts of the Apostles have a similar focus on the need to live simply and ascetically in this life so as to enjoy the pleasures of heaven in the life to come. Nowhere is this lesson taught more clearly than in the Acts of Paul, particularly in the stories of Paul's female convert, Thecla. For centuries, Thecla was considered one of the most important figures in early Christianity. e In the Acts of Paul, Paul arrives in the city of Iconium on a missionary journey. In the home of a man named Onesiphorus, he begins preaching his message to some assembled Christians. Although the historical Paul taught that a person is made mght with God by believing in the death and resurrection of Jesus, in this account, Paul preaches a message of asceticism: that in order to have salvation, one must fear God and live in chastity. © Thecla, who happens to live next door, hears Paul deliver this message. She is a young virgin who is engaged to a wealthy aristocrat named Thamyris, but as she listens to Paul’s proclamation, she decides to commit herself to his gospel. She will call off her engagement and remain chaste for her entire life. o Thamyris and Thecla’s mother try to persuade Thecla to rethink her position, but she is committed. Out of anger, Thamyris turns Thecla over to the ruling authorities, saying that she ts being disruptive of social norms. The local administrator finds that she is guilty and condemns her to be burned at the stake. But as Thecla is being burned, God sends a thunderstorm that puts out the fire, and Thecla manages to escape.

• From Holy Ghost Girl (2012)

  “Hey, y’all, I b’lieve it’s gone down a little. Look.”Everyone said yeah, maybe he did look smaller, at least a little, when it was plain he looked the same or larger.About a hundred of the faithful accompanied Brother Terrell to court. My mother and Betty Ann and key members of the evangelistic party like Brother Cotton stayed behind to organize an all-day prayer meeting under the tent. I was relieved. If they put Brother Terrell in jail, if they yanked his fingernails out with pliers and tortured him for his faith, someone would still be around to drive to the store and buy groceries. As it turned out, the four of us kids were on our own that day. We started a couple of halfhearted fights with local children that didn’t go anywhere, wrote cusswords in the dust on believers’ cars, and played a lot of chase. Randall ran backward on his heels, his belly bouncing slow like a beach ball. As Pam, Gary, and I closed in on him, he turned around to run in earnest and slammed face-first into the ocean of humanity that was Sister Waters.The Waters, as Pam called her, was five feet tall and weighed at least two hundred pounds. She lived in Andalusia, Alabama, but she followed the revivals from town to town and had decided that she was called by God to keep an eye on us children. Her calling compelled her to grab Randall by the shirt and me and Pam by our ponytails at every opportunity, hissing under her breath, “You better sit your tails down before the devil gets a holt of you.”She was so worried about Brother Terrell that day that she swatted Randall aside and continued in prayer. “Help him, Lord. Help him, Jesus.”We watched in relief as she rolled by, her hands stretched open against her sides, fingers wide. Each time she took a step, she pointed a short, squat foot and the opposite hand moved forward in tandem. The effect was a dainty, mincing walk that set her body vibrating against the thin, strained cotton of her dress. Once she was out of earshot, Randall made a wavy motion with his hand and said, “God moved on The Waters.”Late that afternoon, a man named Sam, a longtime follower of Brother Terrell, delivered the news. The evangelistic team, the tent crew, and the families who followed the tent gathered in the backstage area to hear the news. Sam was a short, wiry man with a t-shaped nose and a brown, well-creased neck. When he spoke, his eyes hopped about like a bird and his face turned red.“Judge said he should’a not torn up that paper. They took him to jail.”Mama spoke up. “For tearing up a paper?”“I don’t know what for. They just took him. He didn’t say anything, didn’t speak a word against ’em.”Brother Cotton started up the steps to the platform. “I better tell the people. Don’t turn the sound system on, Dockery.

• From Middlesex (2002)

  The sexologist was looking reassuringly medical that morning. Over his cashmere turtleneck he wore an actual white coat. In his hand he held a sketchpad. His ballpoint pen bore the name of a phar- maceutical company. The blinds were drawn, the light low. The cou- ples in the Mughal miniatures had modestly covered themselves in shadow. Sitting in his designer chair, with tomes and journals rising behind him, Dr. Luce appeared serious, full of expertise, as was his speech. "What I'm drawing here," he began, "are the fetal genital structures. In other words, this is what a baby's genitals look like in 426 the womb, in the first few weeks after conception. Male or female, it's all the same. These two circles here are what we call the all- purpose gonads. This little squiggle here is a Wolffian duct. And this other squiggle is a Miillerian duct. Okay? The thing to keep in mind is that everybody starts out like this. We're all born with potential boy parts and girl parts. You, Mr. Stephanides, Mrs. Stephanides, me— everybody. Now"— he started drawing again—"as the fetus de- velops in the womb, what happens is that hormones and enzymes are released— let's make them arrows. What do these hormones and en- zymes do? Well, they turn these circles and squiggles into either boy parts or girl parts. See this circle, the all-purpose gonad? It can be- come either an ovary or a testis. And this squiggly Miillerian duct can either wither up"— he scratched it out—"or grow into a uterus, fal- lopian tubes, and the inside of the vagina. This Wolffian duct can ei- ther wither away or grow into a seminal vesicle, epididymis, and vas deferens. Depending on the hormonal and enzymatic influences." Luce looked up and smiled. "You don't have to worry about the terminology. The main thing to remember is this: every baby has Miillerian structures, which are potential girl parts, and Wolffian structures, which are potential boy parts. Those are the internal geni- talia. But the same thing goes for the external genitalia. A penis is just a very large clitoris. They grow from the same root." Dr. Luce stopped once more. He folded his hands. My parents, leaning forward in the chairs, waited. "As I explained, any determination of gender identity must take into account a host of factors. The most important, in your daugh- ter's case"— there it was again, confidendy proclaimed—"is that she has been raised for fourteen years as a girl and indeed thinks of her- self as female. Her interests, gestures, psychosexual makeup— all these are female. Are you with me so far?"

• From Looking for Alaska (2005)

  We ran for a few more minutes, until we found the bank of the creek. It was so dark and so still that the tiny stream of water seemed to roar, but I could still hear our hard, fast breaths as we collapsed on wet clay and pebbles beside the creek. Only when we stopped did I look at Takumi. His face and arms were scratched, the fox head now directly over his left ear. Looking at my own arms, I noticed blood dripping from the deeper cuts. There were, I remembered now, some wicked briar patches, but I was feeling no pain. Takumi picked thorns out of his leg. “The fox is fucking tired,” he said, and laughed. “The swan bit my ass,” I told him. “I saw.” He smiled. “Is it bleeding?” I reached my hand into my pants to check. No blood, so I smoked to celebrate. “Mission accomplished,” I said. “Pudge, my friend, we are indefuckingstructible.” We couldn’t figure out where we were, because the creek doubles back so many times through the campus, so we followed the creek for about ten minutes, figuring we walked half as fast as we ran, and then turned left. “Left, you think?” Takumi asked. “I’m pretty lost,” I said. “The fox is pointing left. So left.” And, sure enough, the fox took us right back to the barn. “You’re okay!” Lara said as we walked up. “I was worried. I saw the Eagle run out of hees house. He was wearing pajamas. He sure looked mad.” I said, “Well, if he was mad then, I wouldn’t want to see him now.” “What took you so long?” she asked me. “We took the long way home,” Takumi said. “Plus Pudge is walking like an old lady with hemorrhoids ’cause the swan bit him on the ass. Where’s Alaska and the Colonel?” “I don’t know,” Lara said, and then we heard footsteps in the distance, mutters and cracking branches. In a flash, Takumi grabbed our sleeping bags and backpacks and hid them behind bales of hay. The three of us ran through the back of the barn and into the waist-high grass, and lay down. He tracked us back to the barn , I thought. We fucked everything up . But then I heard the Colonel’s voice, distinct and very annoyed, saying, “Because it narrows the list of possible suspects by twenty-three! Why couldn’t you just follow the plan? Christ, where is everybody?” We walked back to the barn, a bit sheepish from having overreacted. The Colonel sat down on a bale of hay, his elbows on his knees, his head bowed, his palms against his forehead. Thinking. “Well, we haven’t been caught yet, anyway. Okay, first,” he said without looking up, “tell me everything else went all right. Lara?” She started talking. “Yes. Good.” “Can I have some more detail, please?” “I deed like your paper said.

• From Middlesex (2002)

  You will want to know: How did we get used to things? What hap- pened to our memories? Did Calliope have to die in order to make room for Cal? To all these questions I offer the same truism: it's amazing what you can get used to. After I returned from San Fran- cisco and started living as a male, my family found that, contrary to popular opinion, gender was not all that important. My change from girl to boy was far less dramatic than the distance anybody travels from infancy to adulthood. In most ways I remained the person I'd always been. Even now, though I live as a man, I remain in essential ways Tessie's daughter. I'm still the one who remembers to call her every Sunday. I'm the one she recounts her growing list of ailments to. Like any good daughter, I'll be the one to nurse her in her old 520 age. We still discuss what's wrong with men; we still, on visits back home, have our hair done together. Bowing to the changing times, the Golden Fleece now cuts men's hair as well as women's. (And I've finally let dear old Sophie give me that short haircut she always wanted.) But all that came later. Right then, we were in a hurry. It was al- most ten. The limousine from the funeral parlor would be arriving in thirty-five minutes. "You better get cleaned up," Tessie said to me. The funeral did what funerals are supposed to do: it gave us no time to dwell on our feelings. Hooking her arm in mine, Tessie led me into the house. Middlesex, too, was in mourning. The mirror in the den was covered by a black cloth. There were black streamers on the sliding doors. All the old immigrant touches. Aside from that, the house seemed unnaturally still and dim. As always, the enormous windows brought the outdoors in, so that it was winter in the living room; snow lay all around us. "I guess you can wear that suit," Chapter Eleven said to me. "It looks pretty appropriate." "I doubt you even have a suit." "I don't. I didn't go to a stuck-up private school. Where- did you get that thing, anyway? It smells." "At least ifs a suit." While my brother and I teased each other, Tessie watched closely. She was picking up the cue from my brother that this thing that had happened to me might be handled lighdy. She wasn't sure she could do this herself, but she was watching how the younger generation pulled it off. Suddenly there was a strange noise, like an eagle's cry. The inter- com on the living room wall crackled. A voice shrieked, "Yoo-hoo! Tessie honey!" The immigrant touches, of course, weren't around the house be- cause of Tessie. The person shrieking over the intercom was none other than Desdemona.

• From Middlesex (2002)

  specific instructions and contraindications. The Object and I had worked in the dark. She had never really explored my apparatus much. The Clinic had medicalized my genitals. During my time there they were numb or slightiy tender from the constant examinations. My body had shut down in order to get through the ordeal. But trav- eling woke it up. Alone, with the door locked and the chain on, I ex- perimented with myself. I put pillows between my legs. I lay on top of them. Half paying attention, while I watched Johnny Carson, my hand prospected. The anxiety I'd always felt about how I was made had kept me from exploring the way most kids did. So it was only now, lost to the world and everyone I knew, that I had the courage to try it out. I can't discount the importance of this. If I had doubts about my decision, if I sometimes thought about turning back, run- ning back to my parents and the Clinic and giving in, what stopped me was this private ecstasy between my legs. I knew it would be taken from me. I don't want to overestimate the sexual. But it was a powerful force for me, especially at fourteen, with my nerves bright and jangling, ready to launch into a symphony at the slightest provo- cation. That was how Cal discovered himself, in voluptuous, liquid, sterile culmination, couchant upon two or three deformed pillows, with the shades drawn and the drained swimming pool outside and the cars passing, endlessly, all night. Outside Nebraska City, a silver Nova hatchback pulled over. I ran up with my suitcase and opened the passenger door. At the wheel was a good-looking man in his early thirties. He wore a tweed coat and yellow V-neck sweater. His plaid shirt was open at the collar, but the wings were crisp with starch. The formality of his clothes con- trasted with his relaxed manner. "Hello deh," he said, doing a Brook- lyn accent. "Thanks for stopping." He lit a cigarette and introduced himself, extending his hand. "Ben Scheer." "My name's Cal." He didn't ask the usual questions about my origin and destina- tion. Instead, as we drove off, he asked, "Where did you get that suit?" "Salvation Army." "Real nice." 453 "Really?" I said. And then reconsidered. "You're teasing." "No, I'm not," said Scheer. "I like a suit somebody died in. It's very existential." "What's that?" "What's what?" "Existential?" He gave me a direct look. "An existentialist is someone who lives for the moment."

• From Detransition, Baby (2021)

  Yes, he’s right! Amy and her driver traveled north on the map, her trajectory parallel with Reese’s R. Soon enough they would pull even, and then it was just a matter of cutting over and heading them off. Amy’s pulse raced. Love is a battlefield, but also a car chase. Earlier that month, Amy had come home from the adoption orientation to an empty apartment. She wandered from the foyer to the dining room to the kitchen, shell-shocked, not understanding. In her mind, Amy expected Reese to be waiting at home—sorrowful, repentant. Or even angry. But an empty apartment? It had not occurred to her, and the cold fear that she had gone to Stanley’s pierced her. She opened Reese’s closet: The clothes were still there. In the front closet, Amy pulled out the suitcases. Did Reese have a bug-out bag? That just didn’t seem like Reese. Reese was not a prepper type. Even if prepping was just to run, after admitting to cheating. She unzipped both suitcases they owned, to check if cash or toothbrushes, or whatever, had been stashed in one. But no, the suitcases were empty. She was kneeling on the floor, zipping back up a blue suitcase, when the front door opened. Reese saw Amy on the floor with a suitcase. Her eyes widened, then she screamed, “No!” and came down upon Amy, tore the suitcase from her and sent it tumbling across the wood floor. “No, no, no.” Reese clutched at Amy, pulled her closer. “Don’t go, don’t, please.” “What? I’m not going. You were the one who wasn’t here!” “T went back to wait by the train stop for you! For hours!” “T took a car.” Reese’s eyes showed red and raw. “You had a suitcase out.” She had a hurt, little-girl tone. “T was seeing if you were going to leave.” Reese shook her head, and her nose flared, a sign that she was holding back tears. Look how sad Reese was at the thought of losing Amy! Relief radiated out through Amy’s limbs, bright and hopeful. So intense that it almost compensated for the anguish of her whole night thus far. When Reese asked if she wanted to process, to talk, Amy—now confident—shook her head and said they should sleep, and talk in the morning. She couldn’t bear the thought of losing this relief raft. She grasped at it, and even managed a wan smile when turning back the covers and getting in tentatively beside Reese. Amy settled in with maximum care and tenderness, as though getting into bed beside someone who’d just had surgery and needed comfort but couldn’t be jostled.

• From Detransition, Baby (2021)

  This information did not illuminate the situation for Reese. Making face scrubs with a real estate agent? Is this cis culture? What’s next week? Nail art with your financial planner? “T have to admit,” Reese now confesses to Sexy-Smart Yoga Instructor, “I don’t know doTERRA.” Sexy-Smart beams at Reese; she has that habit of charmingly touching the person whom she addresses on the arm. “Oh! A virgin. Don’t worry, I'll take care of you.” She winks. You really must be sexy to successfully land such a nakedly mercantile wink on a target like Reese. But this woman lands it, and Reese, despite all her cynicism and familiarity with informal sex work, can’t help but experience a moment of involuntary relief and gratitude that she will be losing her doTERRA virginity to such an amazing woman. By the time that Reese has munched on some appetizers and had a glass of chardonnay, she’s gathered that dOoTERRA is another entry in the ranks of companies reliant on a model of party-plan direct sales—it’s like Cutco knives, Mary Kay, or Tupperware—only it targets, with its upscale essential oils, the anxiety of those wellness- obsessed women who are just a little too beholden to middle-class propriety to permit themselves to take up crystals and anti-vaxxing screeds. So Reese will be sold essential oils this evening. She doesn’t even mind. She’s just happy to meet Katrina’s friends, discussing either kitchen remodels, recalcitrant husbands, or recalcitrant children. As they mill about, they do not have the air of tremendously moneyed people, but Reese detects that alien assurance of educated folks who have always had jobs, or at least a clear path to earning. A temporality that said yes, another paycheck will arrive somewhere soon on your way to the next life event. Ensconced in a nook by the window, snacking off a plate of crudités, Katrina confides to Reese that she and some of the others are trying to be supportive of Kathy, who has been getting into some weird intersection of capitalism and witchy shit, post-breakup with her long-term boyfriend. “We did a sound bath last month,” Katrina whispers confidentially. “Fifty bucks each. At this ridiculous, opulent penthouse in Tribeca. We all lay on blankets for ninety minutes, while these people that Kathy met at Burning Man came and played steel drums arrhythmically and held tuning forks above our heads. They said the vibrations would clear our auras.” “Did it work?” Reese asks.

• From Holy Ghost Girl (2012)

  As I made my way back to my seat, I saw the old man and woman framed in the doorway of the church; beyond them stretched the beginning of the West Texas sky, and the world, the big, wide world. I’d be there again soon enough. AcknowledgmentsI am grateful to the Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Conference for its recognition of an early chapter and the impetus to finish this book; the Ragdale Foundation for the gift of time, space, and amazing food that sustained spirit and body (thank you, Linda); the Writers’ League of Texas, especially Cyndi Hughes and Jan Baumer for ongoing support; and to the Austin Bat Cave and S. Kirk Walsh for workshops that inspired and encouraged me to believe in my story.Many thanks to Theresa May, editor in chief at the University of Texas Press, for her cheerleading and “safety net,” and to writers P. J. Pierce, Mary Day Long, Elena Eidelberg, and Christine Wicker for reading the pages and listening. Special thanks to the women of the Secret Sports Club (you know who you are) for beating back the demons. My sister Carol Terrell Lamb and my mother, Carolyn Richardson, provided background materials that breathed life into the past and for which I am truly grateful.The persistence and patience of agent extraordinaire Dan Conaway turned a prologue into a book and my editor, Lauren Marino, at Gotham kept the faith through missed deadlines.A number of texts provided context and inspiration for this book: First and foremost, Can Somebody Shout Amen! Inside the Tents and Tabernacles of American Revivalists , by Patsy Sims; Salvation on Sand Mountain , by Dennis Covington; The Gospel Singer: A Novel , by Harry Crews; All Things Are Possible: The Healing and Charismatic Revivals in Modern America , by David Edwin Harrell Jr.; Border Radio (page 318), by Gene Fowler and Bill Crawford; Journey to Dharavi: The Life and Ministry of David Terrell , by Earl W. Green; and Beyond the Valley of the Shadow of Death , by David Randall Terrell.Thanks to William Martin, senior fellow for Religion and Public Policy, Baker Institute at Rice University, for sharing his notes and observations of David Terrell and other revivalists.Finally, I owe everything to Kirk Wilson, my husband and partner, for his tireless support and unshakable faith.

• From Detransition, Baby (2021)

  Katrina shifted a pillow, and when she turned back to Ames, her face was...amused? “See, you proved my point. When I said ‘ennui of heterosexuality,’ you challenged me, but when I said ‘miscarriage,’ you immediately apologized. That’s why the miscarriage is the official story of my divorce. No one ever challenges it. Miscarriages are private, and so my miscarriage is a clean get-out-free card. It makes for a divorce in which Danny was blameless—grief where you lose something you can’t quite name. People assume that mourning drove a sad wedge between a couple—no one’s fault. Everything is assumed. No one ever asks how I actually felt about the miscarriage.” “How did you feel about the miscarriage?” Ames asked. “T felt relief.” “Relief?” “Yes. I was relieved. Which made me feel like a psychopath. I read all these articles in women’s magazines about miscarriages, and they all said that I would feel grief and guilt. They assured me that it wasn’t my fault: that it wasn’t because of that glass of wine I had once, or that Italian sub full of processed meat. But I never thought it was my fault. My own guilt came from not having guilt. After a while of feeling that way, I began to ask why. Why should I feel relieved? It caused me to look harder at my marriage. I was relieved because of something I didn’t want to admit: I didn’t want to be with Danny anymore and if we had a kid together I would have to be. Danny was a good boyfriend to have when I was younger, when we were in college. Like, in the same way that a Saint Bernard would be a good dog to have if you were lost in the mountains. A big amiable body that a girl could shelter behind. Danny was an idea I inherited, maybe from growing up in Vermont, of what a man was supposed to be. We looked good together; like, early on I knew any photo for our wedding announcement was going to look like it came from a magazine. So when he proposed, I accepted, even though we had been dating two years, and I don’t think that sex ever lasted longer than fifteen minutes, including foreplay, and despite the fact that by the three-month point in our relationship, I had somehow already ended up doing his laundry. “One time, I made this joke that my marriage was like a push-up bra: It looked pretty good underneath a shirt, but you know it’s all just padding and by the end of the day you can’t wait to take the damn thing off. My friends laughed, but I felt icy, because I realized I had inadvertently told the truth and it was awful.” Ames listened. She had once told him that she liked how he didn’t seem to feel a need to speak or give advice when she was working through a thought out loud.