Faraway Places
There is a leper with a fat brown face who sits begging for change on the pedestrian flyover that leads to Jardine House, but blacker than his pock-marked stumps, is the heart of the mainland lady who stands on the corner of O’Brien Road in Wanchai, offering with a leer and a wink, “Young girls, young girls.” In truth, a man would soon discover, the girls are not that young, for if he showed the slightest interest in pausing a moment too long, a diminutive female of uncertain middle age might beckon from the shadows of a side street, her superficial smile betraying imperfect teeth and improper motives.
By Nelson L. Eshleman.
Retell-Tale Signs
Can anything stop him? In the space of a few months, Tom McCarthy has gone from being 3:AM Book of the Year to New York Times Books Review cover feature. Liesl Schillinger writes in today’s issue: “What can you say to a writer who invents a character so perverse and controlling that he accuses the […]