If you had to name one book that made you who you are today, what would it be?
One would be difficult, but the short stories of Flannery O’Connor landed hard on me. You could feel within them the unknowability of God, the intangible mysteries of life that confounded her characters, and which I find by my side every day. They contained the dark Gothicness of my childhood and yet made me feel fortunate to sit at the center of this swirling black puzzle, stars reeling overhead, the earth barely beneath us.
“(T)he short stories of Flannery O’Connor landed hard on me…” Yeah, Brooce, but who threw them? Miami Steven? Clarence “the Big Man” Clemons? Garry Tallent? Bwahahaha!
I like that turn of phrase! Shall we allow Mr. Springsteen some poetic license? Although, now I have a persistent image in my mind of the E Street Band hurling books… 😉
When someone gives me the perfect set-up for a terrible joke, who am I to resist? I don’t think poetic license comes into it!