“Look down fair moon and bathe this scene, Pour softly down night’s nimbus floods on faces ghastly, swollen, purple, On the dead on their… — Michael McDowell Copy Share Image
“Merle Weaver stroked the little girl's hair and thought of the two corpses in the rear of the truck.” — Michael McDowell Copy Share Image
“I sort of wish that was what happened though, Ginny, because that would mean the girl is all right. Fourteen-year-old girls have run off… — Michael McDowell Copy Share Image
“To the little girl the house seemed a gigantic head, and she only a morsel of meat conveniently positioned in its gaping mouth. The front porch was that grinning mouth, the white porch railing its lower teeth, the ornamental wooden frieze above its upper teeth, the painted wicker chair on which she perched its green wagging tongue. Frances sat and… — Michael McDowell Copy Share
“That her niece should find such profound pleasure in the company of a thirteen-year-old black girl--and, more to the point, always within the precincts of Elinor's house--was a slap in Mary-Love's face. She decided, without saying anything more to James, to wreck Grace's perfection of happiness. Grace would learn that she, Mary-Love, was the source of all felicity within the… — Michael McDowell Copy Share
“That was the great misconception about men: because they dealt with money, because they could hire someone on and later fire him, because they alone filled state assemblies and were elected congressional representatives, everyone thought they had power. Yet all the hiring and firing, the land deals and the lumber contracts, the complicated process for putting through a constitutional amendment-these… — Michael McDowell Copy Share
“Mary-Love liked to see herself as the family cornucopia, dispensing all manner of good things, unstintingly, unceasingly. She considered herself amply rewarded by her… — Michael McDowell Copy Share Image
“Southerners are an easygoing race when it comes to aberrations of conduct. They will react with anger if something out of the ordinary is… — Michael McDowell Copy Share Image
“In the hour before a thunderstorm, the color of the forest deepens: the pine needles take on a dense vibrant greenness they possess at… — Michael McDowell Copy Share Image
“They placed the board between them on the kitchen table, and Becca took the suddenly inspired precaution of sprinkling the planchette with holy water… — Michael McDowell Copy Share Image
