Hello

The quote is from Denis Johnson's Tree of Smoke. Haven't actually finished reading it yet. It's a big one. But this particular phrase I found to be quite arresting. Turns out he won the National Book Award.

I freelance, mostly writing about films and books. This blog is a response to friendly strangers or pals who say hey, where can I read your stuff? Because I freelance, a lot of it is spread out over different sites and print publications and even under different names, so I'm going to try and post some of it here, at least the stuff those publications will tolerate the doubling of, so that it's all in one handy place.

Long ago I was trained to be an actor in a place called Red Deer, where there were many horses and trucks and a beautiful river. There was a pretty girl who had mono. The sky was enormous. There was a sun-filled room with a piano where I worked on monologues and made out with a different girl, one who didn't have mono, but whose boyfriend was seeking a vocation in the ministry. It was the place where I lost my teenage hair. I never lived there before this training and have not returned since.