The Pugilist at Rest, but for three or four hours, as I lie on my bedroom floor absorbing the novel from cover to cover, I hardly move, while beneath my skin I seem to possess another self, thinner and freer, made of electricity and air, which sways as I turn the pages.
I don’t feel like I’m dancing even when I’m dancing, so it takes a lot to make me feel like I’m dancing when I’m reading. At 22, I have developed the almost ritualistic habit of equating my favorite novels with my favorite albums.
Housekeeping, I decide, is Iris DeMent’s