“Mamey said that in her day a woman who had not married by the age of thirty was called a thornback, named after a flat, spiny, prehistoric-looking fish.” — Christina Baker Kline Copy Share Image
“Mr. Grote shows me how he grows wild rice in the stream and collects the seeds. The rice is nutty and brown. He plants… — Christina Baker Kline Copy Share Image
“I try to forget the horror of what happened. Or—perhaps forget is the wrong word. How can I forget? And yet how can I move forward even a step without tamping down the despair I feel? When I close my eyes, I hear Maisie’s cries and Mam’s screams, smell the acrid smoke that must have started from that pile of… — Christina Baker Kline Copy Share
“don’t know how much of my memory of this time is affected by my age now and how much is a result of the age I was then—seven when we left Kinvara, nine on that night when Maisie wouldn’t stop crying, that night that, even more than leaving Ireland, changed the course of my life forever. Eighty-two years later, the… — Christina Baker Kline Copy Share
“The stark gray sky and bare tree limbs feel more suited to her than the uncomplicated promise of sunny spring days.” — Christina Baker Kline Copy Share Image
“Sometimes these spirits have been more real to me than people, more real than God. They fill silence with their weight, dense and warm,… — Christina Baker Kline Copy Share Image
“Every Easter she and her mother planted those crocuses near the fence beside the driveway, and soon enough a whole cluster of them, white… — Christina Baker Kline Copy Share Image
“Mr. Kaminski pulled a chain hanging from the pressed-metal kitchen ceiling, and light seeped from a bulb, casting a wan glow over a scarred… — Christina Baker Kline Copy Share Image
“Before we leave the gravesite, Mary sings Mother's favorite gospel hymn ... Mary's lovely voice rises and lingers in the air, and by the… — Christina Baker Kline Copy Share Image
“for the first time since the fire, my worries are gone. I feel a joy so strong it’s almost painful—a knife’s edge of joy.” — Christina Baker Kline Copy Share Image
“What was it the teacher in her Legal Issues class said the other day? Never bring up a point you don’t have an answer… — Christina Baker Kline Copy Share Image
“Mrs. Scatcherd raps Dutchy's knuckles several times with a long wooden ruler, though it seems to me a halfhearted penalty. He barely winces, then shakes his hands twice in the air and winks at me. Truly , there isn't much more she can do. Stripped of family and identity, fed meager rations, consigned to hard wooden seats until we are… — Christina Baker Kline Copy Share
