A Christmas mention from a Rattling Books audiobook: The Big Why by Michael Winter
"That Christmas, Gerald Thayer had taken me to seven parties. We had drunk a lot and were vulnerable to awe. But the things we saw were all glitter and no substance. A store was shut and a sign said,
CLOSING SALE
UP TO
As though they hadnt decided what percentage to mark off. Then I saw: the percentage was there, but it had faded. it had been marked in red, the most fugitive of colours. The store, Gerald said, was closed. It's been closed a long time. This shocked me, this realization that what could have been a fresh thought (closing) had been an old act (closed long ago). I want, I said to Gerald, to avoid that predicament. I want a thickness to pour into me, like honey or cement.
You want, Gerald said, to slough off the baubles.
He said you can get that only if you move to a small place, to the periphery, to a community that is one organism and does not change. That loves itself.
So that is why we moved.
And Newfoundland? ..."
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The above excerpt is from The Big Why by Michael Winter.
The unabridged audiobook edition of The Big Why narrated by Robert Joy was recently published by Rattling Books. It is available from rattlingbooks.com as either an MP3 CD or Digital Download. Listening time 10.5 hours.
