{"product_id":"hex-isbn-9781984877390","title":"Hex","description":"\u003cb\u003eOne of \u003ci\u003eVanity Fair\u003c\/i\u003e's 21 Best Books of 2020 (So Far)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA \u003ci\u003eVulture\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eLitHub\u003c\/i\u003e, and\u003ci\u003e PureWow \u003c\/i\u003eMost Anticipated Book of 2020\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"As precise as any scientific observation and far more tantalizing.\" --\u003ci\u003eVogue\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"A sophisticated, surprising take on the campus novel (with a welcome dose of witchery). Knight's writing feels a little wild and charged, as if you're constantly on the edge of discovering something new with her.\"\u003cbr\u003e--\u003ci\u003eGoop\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"\u003ci\u003eHex\u003c\/i\u003e is some dark and joyous witchery.\" --Lauren Groff, author of \u003ci\u003eFlorida\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"A beautiful, spooky spell.\" --Jenny Slate, actress and author of \u003ci\u003eLittle Weirds\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA breathtaking and hypnotic novel about poison, antidotes, and obsessive love\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNell Barber, an expelled PhD candidate in biological science, is exploring the fine line between poison and antidote, working alone to set a speed record for the detoxification of poisonous plants. Her mentor, Dr. Joan Kallas, is the hero of Nell's heart. Nell frequently finds herself standing in the doorway to Joan's office despite herself, mesmerized by Joan's elegance, success, and spiritual force. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSurrounded by Nell's ex, her best friend, her best friend's boyfriend, and Joan's buffoonish husband, the two scientists are tangled together at the center of a web of illicit relationships, grudges, and obsessions. All six are burdened by desire and ambition, and as they collide on the university campus, their attractions set in motion a domino effect of affairs and heartbreak. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMeanwhile, Nell slowly fills her empty apartment with poisonous plants to study, and she begins to keep a series of notebooks, all dedicated to Joan. She logs her research and how she spends her days, but the notebooks ultimately become a painstaking map of love. In a dazzling and unforgettable voice, Rebecca Dinerstein Knight has written a spellbinding novel of emotional and intellectual intensity.\u003cb\u003ePraise for \u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eHex\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003e:\u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Strange and delightful. . . . The past half-decade has seen a spike in oddball novels about brainy women in various states of crisis; think of Ottessa Moshfegh's \u003ci\u003eMy Year of Rest and Relaxation\u003c\/i\u003e, or Halle Butler's \u003ci\u003eThe New Me\u003c\/i\u003e, or Danzy Senna's \u003ci\u003eNew People\u003c\/i\u003e. These three novels succeed, in part, because their prose and protagonists are leached of joy. Dinerstein Knight inverts that strategy. She shoves joy at Nell, and makes Nell greedy for it. . . . How could a reader—or a botany professor—not be charmed?\" \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Lily Meyer, NPR.org\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e“[A] swift moving, sardonic novel. . . . Dinerstein Knight paints a withering portrait of this web of toxic romances, and of the excesses of academia, while illustrating how both the heart and the mind can be broken and reshaped by changing circumstances.” \u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eThe New Yorker\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\"As precise as any scientific observation and far more tantalizing.\" \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003ci\u003e—\u003c\/i\u003eVogue\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Poisonous plants, disgraced Ph.D. candidates, a cooly charismatic mentor, and a multiperson love entanglement with a shape-name more complicated than 'triangle' populate this strange, delightful novel of a woman obsessed. . . . A macabre premise executed with absurdist panache.\" \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e—\u003c\/i\u003eKeziah Weir, \u003ci\u003eVanity Fair\u003c\/i\u003e’s \"21 Best Books of 2020\"\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"A sophisticated, surprising take on the campus novel (with a welcome dose of witchery). Knight’s writing feels a little wild and charged, as if you’re constantly on the edge of discovering something new with her.\" \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e—Goop\u003c\/i\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Academics tie themselves up into a pretzel of betrayal and desire in Rebecca Dinerstein Knight’s propulsive second book, which reads a tiny bit like AS Byatt after dark. . . . Unfolding as a series of notebook entries, \u003ci\u003eHex\u003c\/i\u003e tracks Nell’s growing obsession with Dr. Joan Kallas, her advisor, and a staggering number of side affairs that begin happening as she chases a poison that will undo itself. This is a bold and highly charged book that makes entertainment seem like not such a bad word.\" \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e—\u003c\/i\u003eJohn Freeman, \u003ci\u003eLit Hub\u003c\/i\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"This may be the first novel I’ve read that illustrates the other side of the quirky coin. It’s playful! Eccentric! Plants are involved! You really have no idea how a particular sentence is going to conclude, even when you’re approaching the end of it. . . . [I] think it’s ‘rather good’ . . . Read if you like: Lydia Davis, the word \u003ci\u003edecoction\u003c\/i\u003e, dabbling in Wicca, Wordsworth’s botanical-themed poems, peacocks.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e—\u003c\/i\u003eMolly Young, \u003ci\u003eVulture\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Con­tained and bewitch­ing, \u003ci\u003eHex\u003c\/i\u003e is a love let­ter, a diary, a sci­en­tif­ic study of rela­tion­ships and desire. . . . There’s a lush dark­ness here, and [Knight's] tight, poet­ic lan­guage bol­sters the novel’s intel­lec­tu­al New York hip­ster cool to become some­thing more ver­dant, more unex­pect­ed. . . . Ten­der and enchant­i­ng.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e—\u003c\/i\u003eRussell Janzen, \u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eJewish Book Council\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\"\u003ci\u003eHex\u003c\/i\u003e is less Donna Tartt and more Ottessa Moshfegh: sardonic and strange. The novel is a delightfully odd pastiche of courtly love. . . . With its dark humour and loopy lyricism, it bewitches.\" \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e—The Sunday Telegraph\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\"A luminous, manic, clever, sometimes-too-clever, funny, tragic, and frustrating botany of desire and taxonomy of poisons. . . . The real witchcraft of this book is in its prose. . . . The intellectual joy of this book is where, in the time honored tradition of William Blake, Georgia O’Keefe, and Seymour Krelborn of \u003ci\u003eLittle Shop of Horrors\u003c\/i\u003e, Nell gardens her feelings. She takes us on a tour of flowering poisons, from sassy bark to ricin to monkshood, to cashews. Nell presses flowers and poisons and desires into her journal until they become a single universal language. . . . If you’re a fan of desire, if you’re a fan of cacti, if you like poison, here’s a book for you.\" \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e—\u003c\/i\u003eCarson Beker, \u003ci\u003eLambda Literary Review\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"The working minds of Knight’s characters are simultaneously so precise that they feel scientific and so familiar to one’s own life experience that they feel magical. Nell is seemingly distracted at times but is actually astoundingly and delightfully perceptive, and she reveals the complex truths of this story deftly and easily. . . . \u003ci\u003eHex\u003c\/i\u003e is a book for those who feel adrift and solitary, for those who feel overwhelmed by themselves. Ultimately, it’s a story about harnessing what is out of control—and learning that perhaps the only way to control a poisonous thing is to first embrace it.\" \u003ci\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e—Chicago Review of Books\u003c\/i\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\"What happens when five academics and an administrator walk into a book? Everything. Nell, our heroine, is equipped with a unique skill set: an incredibly biting and satirical sense of humor, a profound psychological acuity, and enough self-loathing to make her utterly fascinating. The scrutiny within the laser-sharp focus of her gaze makes alive all the other life forms in this story—plants, animals, people, dirt. The overlap in all the varieties of love and pain—felt, given, shared, afflicted, scorned—mingle within this group of six making this novel a most brilliant conjuring.\" \u003ci\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e—\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003eLucy Kogler, \u003ci\u003eLit Hub \u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Knight’s dark, off-kilter and entirely beguiling novel is written in the form of Nell’s scientific notebook, which is filled with botanical references and grows increasingly unhinged as her captivations and grudges mount. Toxins threaten to infect Nell’s relationships, her university, and her own ecosystem, but ultimately her passion for beauty and joy in the world elevates her, and poison becomes its own poetry.\" \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e—The National Book Review\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"[An] arresting novel of obsession. . . . Nell’s intensity and the hypnotic, second-person prose convincingly render the protagonist’s bewitched, self-destructive state. Readers who liked\u003ci\u003e I Love Dick \u003c\/i\u003eand want something more lurid will appreciate this.\"\u003ci\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Publishers Weekly\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Knight writes in a distinctive, addictive, and poetic style in which every sentence provokes and nothing is predictable.” \u003ci\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e—Booklist\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\"In her brilliant second novel, Rebecca Dinerstein Knight cannily explores both the poisons and the antidotes of love, ambition, mentorship, and yearning, and she does it all in prose so lively that I often found myself laughing with pleasure. \u003ci\u003eHex\u003c\/i\u003e is some dark and joyous witchery.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Lauren Groff, author of \u003ci\u003eFlorida\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Rebecca has written a book that examines our natural and absolutely astounding reactions to each other. The language of this novel is so finely tailored, so elegant yet organic, so absorbing that it takes the reader a moment to realize that this is not just a deliciously engaging tale of what it is like to be social and sexual, but that this writing is an actual incantation in itself. It is a beautiful, spooky spell that divides and processes our innate potential for poison or pleasure.”\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e—Jenny Slate, actress and author of \u003ci\u003eLittle Weirds\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e“\u003ci\u003eHex\u003c\/i\u003e reads like a botanist’s cross-breeding of \u003ci\u003eThe Secret History\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eDept. of Speculation\u003c\/i\u003e, full of brilliant and bodily obsession. Rebecca Dinerstein Knight is both a scientist and a magician, and she conjures this beautiful spell of a novel with total control.” \u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e—Emma Straub, author of \u003ci\u003eModern Lovers\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “\u003ci\u003eHex\u003c\/i\u003e is sexy, unhinged, revelatory, so smart it gives the reader whiplash. It works on you like the poisonous plants that wind through the story line, until you’re as obsessed and intoxicated as the vivid characters that make up this love hexagon gone fascinatingly and beautifully wrong. I can’t remember the last time I had so much fun reading a book or was so impressed by the wizardry of the language.”\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e—Julie Buntin, author of \u003ci\u003eMarlena  \u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “\u003ci\u003eHex\u003c\/i\u003e is a gem of a book: sharp and exquisite. Dinerstein Knight writes about women’s obsession with devastating wisdom, insight, and humor. It is pure pleasure to be under her spell.” \u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e—Julia Pierpont, author of \u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eAmong the Ten Thousand Things\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e“\u003ci\u003eHex\u003c\/i\u003e offers pleasures on every page. It is wise, funny, suspenseful, and quite moving. Dinerstein Knight takes great care with every word.” \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cbr\u003e—\u003c\/i\u003eJonathan Safran Foer, author of \u003ci\u003eHere I Am\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e“\u003ci\u003e\u003ci\u003eHex\u003c\/i\u003e \u003c\/i\u003eis neon-bright and guided by a fierce, scintillating interest in the innermost chambers of the human heart, where melancholic and bright humors mingle together.  In every line you hear the voice of a writer who knows how to lead you expertly into the place where the story is most alive: spooky, shifty, darkly funny, and delectable in every way.” \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e—Alexandra Kleeman, author of \u003ci\u003eYou Too Can Have a Body Like Mine\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Offbeat yet entirely precise; original and universal. \u003ci\u003eHex\u003c\/i\u003e is a nut with sweet meat and a poison shell, at once disarming and quietly devastating. This is a book for anyone who’s ever felt adrift, or felt alone, or loved someone out of reach, or all the above.” \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Rachel Khong, author of \u003ci\u003eGoodbye, Vitamin\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePraise for \u003ci\u003eThe Sunlit Night\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Quirky, exuberant. . . . An original work of gentle irony counterpoised by delightful sincerity, which offers distinct turns of phrase with precision and beauty.”\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eThe Wall Street Journal\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “The Norwegian Arctic of Dinerstein’s imagination is a strange and wonderful place. . . . The constant sunlight of midsummer feeds the book's dreamy, surreal quality. . . . Her narrative style is also dreamlike.”\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eThe New York Times Book Review\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Luminous. . . . Dinerstein brings a contagious wonder to her storytelling.”\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eO, The Oprah Magazine\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “Darkly charming.”\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eThe New Yorker\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “Dinerstein’s much buzzed-about debut novel is a fanciful Arctic Circle romance between a Russian immigrant raised in a Brighton Beach bakery and a Manhattanite seeking refuge from family problems in a Norwegian artists’ colony.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eThe Forward\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Engaging and alive. . . . \u003ci\u003eThe Sunlit Night\u003c\/i\u003e heralds the beginning of an intriguing career in fiction during which Dinerstein will hopefully continue to take us off the beaten path.”\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eHuffington Post\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “A rare find. . . . With precision and ease, Dinerstein gives us a love story that's about so much more than finding love: it’s about finding yourself in the company of another, even when you’re far from home.”\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eBustle\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Dinerstein’s special blend of melancholy and hope renders a character-rich, multifaceted story.” \u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eElle\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “This poetically written novel . . . reminds us that love is more important than geography.” \u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eNew York Post\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “It's hard to read \u003ci\u003eThe Sunlit Night\u003c\/i\u003e without feeling as though you’re enveloped in warmth, swathed by the author’s lyricism and imagery. The sensation is one unique to Dinerstein’s hand—and perfectly matched for the sun-soaked Nordic tale of lives intersecting at the top of the world.” \u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eElectric Literature\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Captivating . . . [Dinerstein’s] prose is lyrical and silky, but it's also specific, with acute observations and precise detail. . . . Provocative. . . . A rich reading experience.” \u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly \u003c\/i\u003e(starred review)\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003eRebecca Dinerstein Knight \u003c\/b\u003eis the author of the novel and screenplay \u003ci\u003eThe Sunlit Night\u003c\/i\u003e, and a collection of poems, \u003ci\u003eLofoten\u003c\/i\u003e. Her nonfiction has appeared in \u003ci\u003eThe New York Times \u003c\/i\u003eand \u003ci\u003eThe New Yorker\u003c\/i\u003e online, among others. Born and raised in New York City, she lives in New Hampshire.I\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI am a woman who wakes up hungry. Tom touched only ­coffee till  noon. You do what you’re capable of at some point, so Tom and I left  each other. I wanted breakfast, he wanted liberty, and who could blame  either of us. I live alone now in a large rancid blown-­out loft in  outer Red Hook, where I pad around the soft wood floors like a toddler:  I’ve taken my pants off, my rings, earrings, it is quiet and bright, I  haven’t gotten any lamps, I can hardly move, I’m drunk and I take a  probiotic. My name is Nell Barber. I’m five foot five and 130 pounds  which is not in any way remarkable. My daddy was a nice Jewish boy who  married a nice Christian girl and raised me in Kansas and got on with  it. Neither of them observed anything ever again. I was born observant.  They gave me the original, fearful, organized minds of their childhoods  and no religion of my own to honor. I suppose I turned from the  celestial to the dirt. I study plants and I live in order.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJust  because Rachel Simons made sustained contact with thallium and absorbed  its toxins through her potassium uptake channels and died, the  university expelled all six members of our lab. They couldn’t tolerate  another ounce of our hazard! The disciplinary committee stood in choral  formation and issued what sounded like whale tones run through a  vocoder. Be-­gone, be-­gone, they groaned. Our experiment in toxicology  had taken the life of a valued graduate student and would no longer be  institutionally condoned. I wore a hazmat suit to the hearing, to  promise future caution. The chairman found this disrespectful and I  could hardly see his apoplectic face through the scratched plastic front  of my secondhand helmet.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eColumbia couldn’t accuse us—­Rachel had  oxidized the thallium of her own volition, at her own risk, and to her  own demise—­but it could close down the environment in which she’d  endangered herself and rescind our schoolwide welcome. We had broken the  contract of care and common responsibility that characterized the  Columbia student. If we couldn’t study safely, we couldn’t study. It  made good sense but it deleted me. The finalized verdict came via a  specially assembled summer committee, via Priority Mail, to Tom’s  address, which I’d just kissed goodbye without any tongue. August is  supposed to be a lazy month but it pummeled my partnership and my PhD.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe  biggest loss is you: my chime, my floorboard. You are my night milk.  You are my unison. You believe in the periodic table. Your book sold  eight thousand copies in its first week. Columbia will separate you from  the Simons case and nurture your celebrity. For five years I have been  your smaller self, your near-­peer, your sane challenger, your favorite.  For five years I’ve trailed you as you approached success. Then Rachel  reached for the rat poison and Whole Thing reached its readers and my  room lost its pillars in one coordinated catastrophe and neatly fell  down. You and Tom have both conclusively shaken me. Look, Joan, I’m  shaking.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTom and I lived in a rectangle of jewels, his mother’s. A  small palace they called an apartment on the Upper East Side, a good  all-­weather walk across Central Park to the university. Each morning  I’d emerge from that snow globe and enter the open air feeling  forward-­moving and weightless. Each morning I’d be a beetle creep­ing  over the park’s grass blades without bending them, so light was I. Now,  when I step onto Van Brunt, my entire body weight rests on the sidewalk,  but only and exactly my weight, not lifted not burdened. I’ve returned  to my skeleton’s original fact. If you asked whether I like it, I think  I’d tell you I do. When you climb out of something you’re very deep  inside, the daylight is first a blank, and then it reveals itself to be  life as you knew it before you climbed into that thing.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEverything  has come around. Against the huge solitude of my schoolwork came the  romance of Tom; against the romance of Tom came our utter lack of sex;  against our nonsexual partnership came our easy, childlike living  together; against our shared life, now, again, huge and unschooled  solitude.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHow undercutting, how generous of the world, to provide  each thing with its inverse, to test each version of life we choose  with a vision of its opposite. How perverse, and unpeaceful. I want more  than anything to love the choice I make. Love it with abandon, proudly,  building a temple upon it. But how can you do it, how can you really  give yourself up and praise anything, when the world is too balanced to  allow for a lopsided devotion, when each thing is always reckoning with  its anti-­self? Perhaps they’re all the same, your various choices, and  committing to one is the same as committing to any. Your only job is to  build a temple.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn memoriam to the temple torn down, to my years  of studiously laid bricks kicked over, to a classmate and all her skin, I  close the old books and open this one. These savage castor beans and  monkshood seeds are no longer the lab’s property. Rachel’s experiment is  now my own; I can destroy it or it can destroy me, as I please. I  please! As with the old work, the new work is for you, Joan. What isn’t  for you? More life collected, documented. You’d like that, wouldn’t you  like that?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYou\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYou dusted the edges of your shelves as I  picked scrambled eggs out from under my fingernails. I had expected to  find your office swarmed. Being alone with you now felt supersonic.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“So what,” you said.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Well, the whole what,” I said, wanting you to comfort me.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYou hate comfort and I know that. I watched the end of your braid fuss against your collarbone.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“I have nowhere to work,” I said.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Work anywhere.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“I have no control, therefore I have no experiment.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI  had to speak clinically in order to speak passionately. At the rate we  were diverging, I soon wouldn’t be able to speak to you at all. A mouse  shot out from under your desk and seized the inch-­long cylinder of  string cheese you’d cut for it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYou clapped your hands once in  satisfaction. Then you looked at me and forgot the success and moved  down to study the gray, claw-­footed saltcellar now resting emptily on  your floor. The day flew in at us through your closed window. I wanted  your inch of string cheese.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYou said, “You have cold and temperate environments in your own home.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI said, “You have cold and temperate environments in your own intestines.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYou blinked at me maliciously as if your eyelids could slap my cheeks.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“That  lab was only extracurricular,” you said, emphasis on the ric. “I let  you play with it because you’re a slobber toddler who needs a toy. What  are you telling me—­you’re changing fields now to what, to botanical  toxins?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“I’m trying to neutralize botanical toxins.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“I thought you were generating a fossil-­calibrated phylogeny of the American oak.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“No department in the country needs an oak specialist.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“What do they need?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Healed evil.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYou  made a face, a sanguine, unruffled pout. Your boredom made me cringe. I  knew your every cue so well I might have become a bacterium in your  gut. You coughed into your hand. I missed you and saw you changing into  someone I would lose.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“I’ll keep to my work and you keep to yours,” you said.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“I need pizzazz,” I said to your carpet. “I’m no star.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Your oak work was reliable.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“I have to blow minds to keep up with you, Joan.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYou looked at me as if I’d invited myself to your house. I looked at you as if through a screen door.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Forget the oak work. I want to do Rachel’s work. Doesn’t somebody need to do it? We’re just going to let her die?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“She died, Nell.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“I’m  saving her soul.” What I didn’t tell you is that I should have saved  her life. That I go to bed at night certain her soul is going to grab my  soul by the neck and strangle me from the inside out, because I was  standing next to her and did nothing, and because why should I be  allowed to keep living? “I’ve advanced her methods,” I said, to stay on  your track. “I think if I keep it going, I could speed up the disarming  of poison to a rate that would almost undo the fact of the poison in the  first place. You would call me The Great Undo.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“I never call you.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“And  even if I kept on with the useless oak thesis,” I said, “which I’d only  do to satisfy your soul, your majesty,” I curtsied, “I no longer have a  school.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“That’s your current problem.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYou rank problems as current, finished, or irrelevant; it usually makes them smaller. This one didn’t shrink.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“They  expelled you precisely to stop you from continuing ­Rachel’s work,” you  said. Action verbs like expel aren’t spoken in Kansas and my shame  swelled. You leaned toward me without any tenderness and said, “Take no  for an answer. Her experiment is over.” I could smell the deep soapy  center of your still wet braid and stood there with panting nostrils.  “If you’re reasonable about it, and you get back to your own,  unobjectionable little project, some other institution may accept you  again somewhere, someday.”","brand":"Penguin Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46303410028773,"sku":"NP9781984877390","price":16.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781984877390.jpg?v=1767729001","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/hex-isbn-9781984877390","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}