{"product_id":"incest-isbn-9780914671879","title":"Incest","description":"A daring novel that made Christine Angot one of the most controversial figures in contemporary France recounts the narrator's incestuous relationship with her father. Tess Lewis's forceful translation brings into English this audacious novel of taboo.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe narrator is falling out from a torrential relationship with another woman. Delirious with love and yearning, her thoughts grow increasingly cyclical and wild, until exposing the trauma lying behind her pain. With the intimacy offered by a confession, the narrator embarks on a psychoanalysis of herself, giving the reader entry into her tangled experiences with homosexuality, paranoia, and, at the core of it all, incest. In a masterful translation from the French by Tess Lewis, Christine Angot's \u003ci\u003eIncest\u003c\/i\u003e audaciously confronts its readers with one of our greatest taboos.\u003cb\u003e2018 Prix Albertine finalist\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"A sensation in France, [INCEST is a] novel in the form of a wild confession of a life filled with trauma...\" \u003cb\u003e— \u003ci\u003eThe New York Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Written in emotional, stream-of-consciousness prose, \u003ci\u003eIncest\u003c\/i\u003e can often feel agitated and erratic, perfectly capturing the shattered inner world of its narrator, who is suggested throughout to be the author herself. . .\u003ci\u003e Incest\u003c\/i\u003e challenges, disgusts and confounds, making it a moving and memorable contribution to contemporary literature. Angot's work of auto-fiction confronts the brutality and pervasiveness of desire and will appeal to those both fascinated and terrified by explorations into the darkness of human nature.\" \u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003e— Shelf Awareness\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Angot is being most truthful when she is discussing her choices as a writer. On one level, I see this book as a treatise on writing itself.\"\u003cb\u003e —Electric Literature\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"At times reminiscent of playwright Sarah Kane, particularly in her incantatory free associations ... \u003ci\u003eIncest\u003c\/i\u003e is remarkably prescient. Christine Angot pinpoints how technology antagonizes mental health; how a lack of immediate reply can give the obsessive mind no room to breath.\" \u003cb\u003e— Rebecca Watson, \u003ci\u003eThe Times Literary Supplement\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Given Angot’s antagonism toward conventional syntax, the English translation, by Tess Lewis, is a feat of perspicuity. . . When “L’Inceste” was first published, an interviewer asked Angot what she hoped to achieve. “My ambition is to be unmanageable,” she said. “That people swallow me and at the same time cannot digest me.”\" \u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003e— New Yorker\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Angot’s writing reclaims the confession as a radical act—spiritual, even...At its core, \u003ci\u003eIncest\u003c\/i\u003e is a true testament to the subversive power of literature.\" \u003cb\u003e— Elizabeth Baird, \u003ci\u003eThe Millions\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"A 2013 \u003ci\u003eTelegraph\u003c\/i\u003e article labelled Angot as 'France’s Queen of Shock-Fiction.' This seems to imply that there’s something inauthentic about Angot. But there’s nothing inauthentic about the way she examines incest’s effect on her character’s cognition, or her ability to derive meaning and draw connections from even the most horrific of personal experiences.\"   \u003cb\u003e—Rebecca Rand, \u003ci\u003eZYZZVA\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Angot works the spirit over. One is exhausted, but one also cries,\u003ci\u003e Finally, an authentic experience\u003c\/i\u003e! Rude and raw, artful but brash and unpredictable...This is what we might all hope to write, to make, to communicate. This should be everyone’s letter to the world. Let us hope more of Angot’s work reaches the English-speaking world, and soon.\" \u003cb\u003e--David Pratt, \u003ci\u003eLambda Literary\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"[INCEST] creates a space where imagination, potential futures, and pasts mingle with experiences, where the ‘I’ slips from the author to the narrator and gets lost in the vortex of language; it is language that speaks—the writer just writes... Voices echoing from the fractures, this is \u003ci\u003eIncest\u003c\/i\u003e: a collective adventure for the one that writes and the ones that read.\" \u003cb\u003e— Giorgos Kassiteridis, \u003ci\u003eAsymptote\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"[\u003ci\u003eIncest\u003c\/i\u003e] is rich, intimate, and pulls you in... [Angot's] books are an incantation, biblical in their onrush of verbs, nouns, names, and deliberate repetitions in the service of rhythm and camouflage, compelling you to read on, for sound, for cadence, for poetry... Take \u003ci\u003eIncest\u003c\/i\u003e into your arms and let yourself experience Angot as you would music, or an image of great evocative power.\" \u003cb\u003e—Tsipi Keller, \u003ci\u003eAsymptote Journal\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"[A] brilliant portrait of a brain almost continually on fire with self-loathing... both a mesmerizing and harrowing ride... I believe Angot has done something truly spectacular here... How many of us have been lost in darkness and unable to think our way out of it? Angot’s life is lived in that state—a state of perpetual chaos and dejection. And she has used her brazen, fierce intelligence to translate this reality to the page in a way that reveals her brilliance as a writer and her sadness as a human being. Her journey is one you will never forget.\" \u003cb\u003e—Elaine Margolin, \u003ci\u003eTruth Dig\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"The exquisite frenzy of the novel is captured masterfully in Tess Lewis’ translation, which preserves not just the passion and the mania of Angot’s narrator, but her wit and her wordplay as well. Lewis has managed to get inside the narrator’s head and translate her essence and energy, as well as her words, perfectly into English.\" \u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eThe Arkansas International\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“\u003ci\u003eIncest \u003c\/i\u003eis a thrilling book. It's a formally daring and passionate performance of the depths of human self-loathing, and the sufferings of attachment. It cut deep inside me with its truths. In every moment of reading it, I both wanted to keep reading it and wanted to write. I don’t think I will ever forget this book.” \u003cb\u003e— Sheila Heti, author of \u003ci\u003eHow Should a Person Be?\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"A maximalist in the art of emotion, Angot unmasks with frightening precision the roiling heart and the sharp edges of lust, loathing, and scorn lodged within love's fossil record.  This is a book that points you toward the subterranean roots of your own emotions, the intricacies and murk we cover up in the name of normal daily operations.\" \u003cb\u003e— Alexandra Kleeman, author of \u003ci\u003eYou Too Can Have a Body Like Mine\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"[Incest] stylistically, is near perfection.. I would recommend this novel to anyone, especially fans of modern\/contemporary literary fiction or experimental fiction.\" \u003cb\u003e— Matthew E. Jackson\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I feel that books like this HAVE to be written to keep the landscape of modern literature fresh, live and moving forward.\" \u003cb\u003e— \u003ci\u003eBookish Lara\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"All said and done, Christine Angot is rock 'n' roll. Not what it became, but what it should never have ceased to be: raw, concise, radical, subversive.... Angot serves as a mirror, revealing to her readers all their paradoxes and contradictions.\" \u003cb\u003e--Françoise-Marie Santucci, \u003ci\u003eLibération\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"It is clear that Christine Angot has won, because we are going to be thinking for a long time about this book. Because it will need a long study written about it in order to examine all of its hypotheses, its contradictions, understand the questions it puts forward, study its passion, disgust, insanity, the dream of controlled incest, the fantasy of incest fulfilled....What's at play in the work of Angot, in her force, her violence, is an idea of literature as a means of escaping from every collective, from all policing ... to think and write in one's singularity.\" \u003cb\u003e--Josyane Savigneau, \u003ci\u003eLe Monde\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Auto-fiction at its extreme does not aspire here to shock but to give literature back its dangerous function and return to it its dignity.\"  \u003cb\u003e--Gérard Meudal\u003c\/b\u003eAUTHOR: Christine Angot is one of the most controversial authors writing today in France. Born in 1958 in Châteauroux, Angot studied law at the University of Reims and began writing at the age of 25. After six years of rejections, Angot published her first novel,\u003ci\u003e Vu du ciel\u003c\/i\u003e, the story of woman named Christine told from the perspective of an angel who died after being raped as a little girl. Her subsequent novels have dealt with a variety of taboo topics, including homosexuality, incest, and sexual violence, and have continually blurred the line between autobiography and fiction. Ever since gaining widespread notoriety with the 1999 publication of \u003ci\u003eIncest,\u003c\/i\u003e Angot has remained at the center of public debate and has continued to push the boundaries of what society allows an author to express.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTRANSLATOR: Tess Lewis is a translator from German and French and an Advisory Editor of \u003ci\u003eThe Hudson Review\u003c\/i\u003e.  She has been awarded translation grants from PEN America and PEN UK, an NEA Translation Fellowship, and a Max Geilinger Translation Grant for her translation of Philippe Jaccottet.I was homosexual for three months. More precisely, for three\u003cbr\u003e months I thought I was condemned to be homosexual. I\u003cbr\u003e really had caught it, I wasn’t imagining things. The test\u003cbr\u003e results were positive. I’d become attached. Not the first few times.\u003cbr\u003e It was the looks she gave. I started on a process, one of collapse.\u003cbr\u003e In which I couldn’t recognize myself. It wasn’t my story anymore.\u003cbr\u003e It wasn’t me. Still, as soon as I saw her, the test results were the\u003cbr\u003e same. I was homosexual the moment I saw her. Things turned\u003cbr\u003e back into me afterwards. Whenever she was gone. Other times,\u003cbr\u003e even in her presence, I was myself again. I missed my daughter\u003cbr\u003e so much on trips, when I was away for longer stretches, three or\u003cbr\u003e four days. The feeling of betraying the only one I truly love. To\u003cbr\u003e whom I’d dedicated all my books. Writing is impossible. When\u003cbr\u003eyou’re not yourself. My sexuality suffered. In the beginning I was\u003cbr\u003e dissatisfied. Then. I wasn’t anymore. I was less and less. Except\u003cbr\u003e for one thing (I’ll get to it later), that I never enjoyed doing.\u003cbr\u003e Something specific, that involves all the rest. Except for once, I\u003cbr\u003e remember. I never did it, so to speak. I had become one hundred\u003cbr\u003e percent homosexual apart from that. Apparently. The moment I\u003cbr\u003e saw her. But for this detail. Remaining fundamentally and profoundly\u003cbr\u003e heterosexual all the while. (But, without theory.) One\u003cbr\u003e detail that spared me. Otherwise I was completely homosexual.\u003cbr\u003e For a short time, but still, three months. There were no men at all\u003cbr\u003e in my fantasies, on the contrary, there were women rivals. I was\u003cbr\u003e on the sidelines, they were rivals with each other. I was fascinated\u003cbr\u003e by homosexuality. No one is fascinated by themselves, I wasn’t\u003cbr\u003e homosexual. And yet. I ended up feeling an enormous desire. As\u003cbr\u003e soon as I saw her arriving, I was caught. Even now, I still have to.\u003cbr\u003e Even at this very moment. Have to stop myself from calling her.\u003cbr\u003e Calling her at work, that’s my specialty. It amused her at first. All\u003cbr\u003e the “quick calls.” The secretary knew my voice. Of course. Right\u003cbr\u003e away. The secretaries recognize my voice. Right away, they know\u003cbr\u003e it’s Christine. I keep at it, I’m relentless. I make it clear, I’m not\u003cbr\u003e embarrassed. The weapon turns against me sooner or later. I use\u003cbr\u003eit. My former editor used to say “she’s a serial killer.” I want to call\u003cbr\u003e him too sometimes. My father has Alzheimer’s, typical, I call\u003cbr\u003e others. I telephone. Her, I can’t count the number of times. I call\u003cbr\u003e again. I hang up. I call back to say, “above all, don’t call me again.”\u003cbr\u003e “I don’t want to hear from you anymore.” I don’t get a call. I\u003cbr\u003e telephone again. I say “you could have called me back. So you\u003cbr\u003e weren’t going to call, hunh? You don’t have the guts! To do the\u003cbr\u003e opposite of what I tell you for once. When you know perfectly\u003cbr\u003e well… it’s not what I wanted. You know it’s not true, what I say.\u003cbr\u003e Not what I want. But the opposite. After three months, you still\u003cbr\u003e haven’t figured it out. You know that’s how it is. And if you don’t,\u003cbr\u003e well then…” Behaving like a baby. I’m perfectly aware. Not at first,\u003cbr\u003e though it was normal to call her at work ten times in an hour. She\u003cbr\u003e claims she loves me. For a blown light bulb, an empty ink cartridge,\u003cbr\u003e a fax that won’t go through, to read her what I’ve just\u003cbr\u003e written over the phone, for some anxiety attack coming on. Etc.\u003cbr\u003e Dinner, do you love me, and I forgot to tell you, I thought to\u003cbr\u003e myself, \u003ci\u003eI’ll call her or I’ll have forgotten again by this evening\u003c\/i\u003e. At first,\u003cbr\u003e it comes off well, she likes it, it’s spontaneous, it’s a change. Serial\u003cbr\u003e killer, it’s part of my charm. I tell her she’s a coward. She tells me\u003cbr\u003e I’m crazy. A lack of balance doesn’t scare me, there are others who\u003cbr\u003ecan’t cope. Like her. People like her. Who have limits. I have none.\u003cbr\u003e Her, she has them. Me, I don’t. She can’t stand it. When things\u003cbr\u003e get so… neurotic. I get called insane. Several times. Don’t take it\u003cbr\u003e as an indictment, you’ve got reasons, it’s just an observation. Some\u003cbr\u003e people have limits, you have none. But still, I’m suffering. She\u003cbr\u003e can’t take it anymore. She has her limits. Who could? I hang up.\u003cbr\u003e I pass the mirror. Despite my face being all flushed, I think I look\u003cbr\u003e pretty good. I say to myself, “I’m worth more than this.” I don’t\u003cbr\u003e call her back. I say to myself “I’m not going to call her.” I say to\u003cbr\u003e myself “how dare she… ten years older than I am… and not all\u003cbr\u003e that attractive.” I lie down. Time to move on to something else.\u003cbr\u003e There are other things in life than calling Mademoiselle. I decide\u003cbr\u003e to read. I like reading. This doesn’t interest me. \u003ci\u003eCoeur furieux, \u003c\/i\u003emy\u003cbr\u003e heart is even more furious. I close the book and try to watch \u003ci\u003eThe\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eLast Temptation of Christ. \u003c\/i\u003eAfter five minutes I stretch out on the\u003cbr\u003e sofa and weep. I don’t just shed a few tears. Pretty soon it’s unbearable.\u003cbr\u003e I wonder who to call. Who to talk to about this. What number\u003cbr\u003e to dial to start sobbing right after “hello” and then “what’s the\u003cbr\u003e matter?” How many phone numbers before coming to my senses\u003cbr\u003e again? There are always offers. “If things aren’t going well, call\u003cbr\u003e me.” No, her. To see if she loves me to exhaustion, as she claims.\u003cbr\u003eIf not, then really! “I’d do anything for you,” but not take two\u003cbr\u003e hundred phone calls. Right now, this minute! At her place, at\u003cbr\u003e work, at the hospital, with a patient in front of her. And then. I\u003cbr\u003e don’t call her again. I’m relieved, I’m finally free. Phew, I even say\u003cbr\u003e it out loud. I say phew. I pick up the phone and put it on my stomach.\u003cbr\u003e I tell myself that it doesn’t mean anything, there’s no reason\u003cbr\u003e I can’t have it on my stomach. The remote control is on the ground\u003cbr\u003e and still I’m not watching television. So there! Just because the\u003cbr\u003e telephone is on my stomach, doesn’t mean I’m going to call. It’s\u003cbr\u003e absurd! I’m so much better off without her. I’m not going to go\u003cbr\u003e and call her now, just when I’m starting to calm down. Besides, I\u003cbr\u003e have nothing to say. Not a thing. Phew. Really, phew. I didn’t want\u003cbr\u003e to. I was never homosexual. I was never interested in breasts.\u003cbr\u003e Mine included. We finally undressed one day. She said “touch\u003cbr\u003e me.” “Never.” I’ll never be able to. I told her, I remember, even\u003cbr\u003e though it was a long time ago, “your breasts bother me.” She said\u003cbr\u003e “well just your luck, they’re very small.” That’s just it! as long as\u003cbr\u003e I’m at it, I’d have preferred they were bigger. When she said “touch\u003cbr\u003e me,” that’s not what she was talking about. When someone says\u003cbr\u003e touch me… Fine, I put my finger in. You never get a chance to\u003cbr\u003e touch something like that otherwise. Léonore has a book about\u003cbr\u003etouching called \u003ci\u003eFeely Bugs \u003c\/i\u003ein the ‘Touch and Feel’ series. There’s\u003cbr\u003e nothing like this in it. Not the plush bug, the one with feathers,\u003cbr\u003e with lace, or, of course, the leather one, or the lamé one, or the\u003cbr\u003e very soft bug, the carpet bug, the sticky bug, the padded bug, the\u003cbr\u003e velvet bug or the bug with pleats, or the scratchy one, or the candy\u003cbr\u003e wrapper butterflies she collects. When I felt how slimy it was! I\u003cbr\u003e pulled back my hand. It’s peculiar. Too peculiar. It was the look\u003cbr\u003e she gave me. Even now, I have to keep from thinking of her eyes.\u003cbr\u003e I’m still vulnerable. Her look is terrible. For me. No one had told\u003cbr\u003e her that before. It seems. \u003ci\u003eSous-au-cun-pré-tex-te. Je-ne-veux. Devanttoi-\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003esurex. Poser-mes-yeux. \u003c\/i\u003e(Under-no-circumstances. Do-I-want.\u003cbr\u003e To-over-expose. My-eyes-in-front-of-you.) She sings that sometimes.\u003cbr\u003e The phone is in the other room. I’m calm. Right here, right\u003cbr\u003e now. It’s more dangerous when it’s on my stomach. Within reach.\u003cbr\u003e I must have really bothered her at work, the number of times I\u003cbr\u003e called. Up to a hundred times in a day. I can’t count any more.\u003cbr\u003e Sobbing or cold as ice, “you’re hopeless, you poor thing, you poor,\u003cbr\u003e poor thing, but poor thing, your medical license should be revoked\u003cbr\u003e for failure to provide assistance to someone at risk. What a sham,\u003cbr\u003e not a shred of humanity. For someone who’s suffering”… “OK,\u003cbr\u003e you want to be friends, I’m calling as a friend, come over.” She\u003cbr\u003edidn’t come. “In any case, we can never be friends, we’re not going\u003cbr\u003e to see each other any more, it’s perfectly clear, besides sex, did\u003cbr\u003e anything ever work between us, more or less – and even then?\u003cbr\u003e Take care of yourself, sweetheart, keep an eye on your little savings.\u003cbr\u003e When you can’t, you can’t, isn’t that right? We can’t. Take\u003cbr\u003e care, take good care, get some rest, yes, you’re tired, my love, get\u003cbr\u003e some rest and keep watch over what little capital you have, so it\u003cbr\u003e stays untouched. For your legacy when you die. When you’re dead.\u003cbr\u003e For your family.” An allusion to the will she wrote when she was\u003cbr\u003e eight. Pitou to my godmother. My rabbits to Mama as long as they\u003cbr\u003e won’t be killed. My desk to Papa. My books to my cousins. My\u003cbr\u003e toys to poor children. My clothes to Françoise. I want to calm\u003cbr\u003e down. Take this damn phone off my stomach. I eject the tape of\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eThe Last Temptation of Christ \u003c\/i\u003eand put in Deleuze’s \u003ci\u003eABC Primer\u003c\/i\u003e, at\u003cbr\u003e least I won’t waste my time. Not my time, there’s that. Letter B,\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eboisson, \u003c\/i\u003edrink. I don’t call. Deleuze immediately raises the bar. Oh\u003cbr\u003e yes, I drank a lot. I stopped. Drinking is a question of quantity.\u003cbr\u003e You don’t drink just anything, everyone has their favorite drink,\u003cbr\u003e the quantity is set. Alcoholics and drug addicts are often ridiculed.\u003cbr\u003e Because ‘Oh, me, I can stop when I want.’ This is the last. The last\u003cbr\u003e phone call, the last, the very last. Before becoming completely\u003cbr\u003edisgusted with it. With calling. Given the answers. When I want\u003cbr\u003e to stop, I do. Next Saturday when I’m back in Paris, this afternoon,\u003cbr\u003e I already stopped a long time ago in my head. With her. The\u003cbr\u003e only woman I love is Léonore, not her. But I can’t dedicate this\u003cbr\u003e one to you, sweetheart. Sweetheart, I used to call you. Even if I’ve\u003cbr\u003e stopped now. Calling. I knew I could stop when I wanted to. I\u003cbr\u003e stopped a long time ago in my head. And Friday, too bad, I’ll go\u003cbr\u003e to Nîmes by myself. We were supposed to go together. I’ll take the\u003cbr\u003e train, I reserved a hotel room. I’ve stopped. Today, in a half hour,\u003cbr\u003e right away, already done, I’m done calling. If she called me, she’d\u003cbr\u003e regret it. She won’t do it, she wouldn’t dare. And if she does, she’ll\u003cbr\u003e regret it. I know how to destroy people. I’ll write her, it’s more\u003cbr\u003e certain. So that she won’t call me anymore. Finally. Phew. Besides,\u003cbr\u003e I’ll take her the letter myself, right now. In person and put it into\u003cbr\u003e her own hands. Unless I send a courier. To show her I didn’t come\u003cbr\u003e up with this pretext just to see her. Something that might seem\u003cbr\u003e like a pretext in her eyes, her beautiful eyes. I’m not going to shell\u003cbr\u003e out 200 francs for that girl. I’ll take it myself. The letter. Written\u003cbr\u003e on stationery from the Gramercy Park Hotel. Where we were so\u003cbr\u003e happy, barely three weeks ago. Happy, well, as for me, not always.\u003cbr\u003e I missed Léonore so much by the third day, I became myself again.\u003cbr\u003eI cried in secret. When she was in the shower I called Claude to\u003cbr\u003e get news. For two days I stopped being homosexual. I kicked her\u003cbr\u003e out of my bed. I never talked about it because I knew it was temporary.\u003cbr\u003e So now I take the stationery, the envelope and a page. I\u003cbr\u003e cross out the letterhead. And I sign it ironically “your little angel!”\u003cbr\u003e But she couldn’t care less that I’m upset. All she wanted: for me\u003cbr\u003e to calm down. I took the letter to her office. I ran. I left Léonore\u003cbr\u003e playing, watched by her friend’s mother. I’d taken her out of\u003cbr\u003e school, I was anxious, I left. I left her with one of her friends’\u003cbr\u003e mothers, I don’t remember which. One of the ones always sitting\u003cbr\u003e on the benches. It was hot out, I arrived covered in sweat, I was\u003cbr\u003e dripping. For forty-eight hours, it was only by running that I could\u003cbr\u003e keep it more or less together. She laughed and said “see you\u003cbr\u003e Saturday,” to calm me down. I’d found her in the X-ray room,\u003cbr\u003e developing some images. At her practice. But in person. In the\u003cbr\u003e little darkroom. Yes, I know, I know I’m all sweaty. And I’d like,\u003cbr\u003e if possible, if it’s not asking too much, I know there are patients\u003cbr\u003e waiting in the next room, for her to read it in front of me. I don’t\u003cbr\u003e want to give it to the receptionist. I want to see her. Her. I want\u003cbr\u003e to be certain she receives it, in her own hands, right away. That\u003cbr\u003e she realize this time, it’s over, I’m done, finished. I ask her, in\u003cbr\u003eaddition, to please not try to call me again, there’s no point. I don’t\u003cbr\u003e want her to. I left at a run, I arrived bathed in sweat, I ran everywhere\u003cbr\u003e for two days. The phone calls were rushed, the letters\u003cbr\u003e urgent. To get to the final letter, the final phone call, as quickly as\u003cbr\u003e possible. And to the last kiss, still, you can kiss me. As quickly as\u003cbr\u003e possible. The last water lily, the last look. I turn on the answering\u003cbr\u003e machine, I filter the calls, I won’t answer if it’s her, so there! People\u003cbr\u003e make fun of alcoholics because they don’t understand. They want\u003cbr\u003e to get to the last glass, to do whatever it takes, an alcoholic never\u003cbr\u003e stops stopping. 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