In 1949, my mother, having nursed her husband through tertiary syphilis, divorced him. In the same year, Aunt Em’s husband died of TB. It seemed only natural that they should seek consolation for their loss in each other’s company. My mother, my brother and I moved into the little terraced house…
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‘We meet at various points in the great swathes of the past that neither of us were alive to witness.’
Allen Bratton on a daytrip to a castle with his older boyfriend.
‘Listening to three white poets, whom I suspect are academics, talk about the state of poetry.’
Oluwaseun Olayiwola eavesdrops on an older generation.
‘I’d been dubious about his company at first.’
Sarah Moss on watching Shakespeare with her twelve-year-old son.
‘She didn’t trust us because, to her, tenants were like children.’
Kate Zambreno on negotiating with her older landlady.
‘A moment now swallowed in embarrassment, I asked a question only a young person might ask an older one.’
Lynne Tillman on trying to understand what makes a generation.
‘Separation has been, perhaps, the single biggest determining influence in my life.’
‘Love was no longer encoded in recognised behaviours, but became subject to private desires and idiosyncratic needs.’
‘My mother’s cry rang in my ears from infancy. ‘No child of mine is going into a shoe factory.’’
‘If provincial life still exists, it does so only residually and is doomed to eventual extinction.’
‘I was a hysterical adolescent. But I was a hysterical adolescent with a credit card and there was a seat available.’
