“She met us at the bus station in the small town she now lives in, because the station was the only place that served coffee. Her hands were red-knuckled and her gums had receded. Her tragedy hadn't made her more approachable, and in fact lent her the unknowable quality of a person who had suffered more than could be expressed.”
More from Jeffrey Eugenides
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“On the morning the last Lisbon daughter took her turn at suicide— it was Mary this time,…”
“I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day in January…”
“It was possible to feel superior to other people and feel like a misfit at the same time.”