P. H. Madore wrote a very kind review of AM/PM on his site. I like the narrative bend on the review. I like it when people talk about what they were doing when they read a book or a story. I don’t remember where I was when I first read Wells Tower’s story “Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned” but I do remember looking up at the ceiling with tears in my eyes and saying “holy shit.”
On a related note, though my book didn’t bring P. H. Madore to tears, as far as I know: it’s rare that a book or a story makes me cry and I treasure that feeling. It first happened when I was ten with the YA novel There’s a Boy in the Girl’s Bathroom. (I can’t remember why. Perhaps I was sad about there being a boy in the girl’s bathroom.) It most recently happened when I read that Wells Tower story again last night.
Other notable weeping times include some point in the middle of The Remains of the Day, the last page of The Sun Also Rises, the last paragraph of “The Prophet from Jupiter” by Tony Earley, in the middle of a Barry Hannah story about Elvis’ mother (while Barry Hannah was reading it aloud; this one was a little embarrassing), last line of “Bullet in the Brain” by Tobias Wolff (ditto, though it still gets me every time). I think that’s it.
This will not make you weep.
I don’t think.
Thanks Matthew, it did not make me weep but I kept it open on my browser and read it maybe four times tonight. Russell Edson is an imp.
“where the red fern grows” made me cry. i think that’s it.
Hi Sam, my fifth grade teacher sat on a stool and read that book and we all cried a lot. I think it was the fifth grade. I still can’t bear to kill off an animal in a story.
I remember I was in a sleeping bag when I read “Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned”. When Djarf performed the Blood Eagle I clenched my toes, clinging to the sleeping bag. When he ripped the spine out it felt like all my insecurities had raced to my toes!