Another Alice Thomas Ellis book. I feel like a tease writing about these books because they're so hard to find. I'll only post two excerpts that I especially like. By the way, isn't that one of the most awful covers you've ever seen?
"I forgot to tell you about one occult experience which I share with my cousin. We both, when little, floated downstairs. My cousin told his mother immediately and she, without looking up from her ironing, said, 'Of course you did.' I didn't tell anybody, but I must have been 19 before it occurred to me as odd, and I wondered if I really had. I still wonder in my sillier moments, because I KNOW I did. If anyone has a rational explanation for this phenomenon he will kindly keep it to himself."
This really stopped me cold because I, too, floated downstairs once. I was between nine and sixteen years old. Maybe it only happens to children. Have any of you had this experience? I'd love to know.
"I am wondering whether I shall now begin to be able to concentrate for more than ten minutes at a time, since for the larger part of my life I have felt that whatever I was doing, I should really be doing something else. Washing nappies I should have been painting pictures. Painting pictures I should have been mincing liver. Pushing the pram round the park I should have been hoovering the house, and hoovering the house I should have been doing it with a greater degree of thoroughness. I detested going out in the evenings, not only because I detest going out in the evenings, but because I was afraid I would return to find that the house had burned down and the children were gone. I was always quite surprised not to find the garden garnished with fire-fighting equipment and even now when I get home I still have to creep into the bedrooms to check that the occupants are present and breathing."
Come on, who can't identify with that?
