The Novella Is At Once The Most

She Would Always Feel This Wild Girl Was The Truest Of Any Of The People She Had Already Been: Adored Daughter, Bourgeois Priss, Rebel, Runaway, Dope-fiend San Francisco Hippie; Or All The People She Would Later Be: Mother, Nurse, Religious Fanatic, Prematurely Old Woman. Vivienne Was A Human Onion, And When I Came Home At Twenty Eight Years Old On The Day The Monster Died, I Was Afraid That The Baptist Freak She Had Peeled Down To Was Her True, Acrid, Tear-inducing Core.

There Is Part Of Me That Longs To Have The Back-to-the-earth Life - Make My Own Bread, Grow My Own Wheat, Just Be Really Self-sufficient - But I Am Not, At The Moment, Willing To Give Up The Luxury Of Modern Life, And Amazing Schools For My Kids, And Things That I've Come To Rely On That Are Parts Of Society.

The Darkest Period Of My Life, So Far, Arrived The Summer I Was Pregnant With My Eldest Son. The Future Was Growing In Me With All Of Its Terrifying Unpredictability, And I Found Myself Anxious, Unable To Work And Woefully At Sea.

Even The Presence Of My Kids Cannot, During Those Writing Hours, Disturb Me. Unless There's A Bone Sticking Out Of Their Arm, I'm Not Interested.

The Trouble Is That America's Become A Utopia Accessible Only To Some People. Others Get Trampled On. Perhaps It's A Problem Of Size. Robin Dunbar, An Anthropologist, Once Gave The Ideal Number Of A Given Community As 148. That Seems About Right To Me. There's Something Idealistic About That - In A Group Of 148 People You Can Get To Know Everybody.