‘The seminary building, parked smack in the middle of the campus, looked west to Davis Hall (women), south to another women's dorm building, and east to the vocationless, unharnessed men of Beast Hall. What did they expect, with so many earthly reminders of flesh around us? Out of the fourteen young men who discerned the call, few, very few, made it to ordination.’
There are problems with this picture. One, we’re not all there, and two, the photo itself is impure. The man in the middle, without a hat, is a Yankee, somewhere from Peoria or Des Moines or one of the right-angled states of the Midwest. He was a friend; but he was not one of us. We were from Tenn…
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‘I think there should be a National Service of Hospitality. The best way to see the true face of humanity is to serve it a plate of chips.’
Camilla Grudova on bad-mannered customers.
‘Anyone who has ever worked night shifts will understand the vertiginous feeling that comes with staring down the day from the wrong end.’
A.K. Blakemore on working nights.
‘I was constantly reading job ads, trying to find my holy grail – a job I could stand to do, and someone foolish enough to hire me.’
Sandra Newman on learning how to play professional blackjack.
‘I loved being a receptionist. What I loved about it was playing the part of being a receptionist.’
Emily Berry on being a temporary office worker.
‘Every part of you would swell, including your eyeballs, and no matter how much water you drank, you were always dehydrated.’
Junot Díaz on working for a steel mill.
‘The burden in law on the pregnant person is to show that they are at risk, in need; they must ask, and hope, rather than demand.’
Memoir by Andrea Brady.
‘When I was growing up in his house, religion was his crutch, a justification for his behaviour.’
Kevin Childs on growing up queer in a Catholic household.
‘I used to be ashamed of it, though I’m not sure what exactly felt shameful.’
On training to be an opera singer.
‘A state of grace, Lispector writes, should be short-lived, episodic.’
Sinéad Gleeson on Clarice Lispector’s Brazil.
‘As I began to flip through a literary magazine, I was stopped by a photograph of myself as a young girl, standing beside my college professor.’
‘I naively believed as a child that I would always have a father present, and the truth seems to be that I always will.’
