At a climactic moment of George Eliot’s novel Daniel Deronda, an adult Daniel meets the mother who abandoned him in his infancy. To this now-grown son, she utters an accusation and issues an ultimatum: “Shall…
As a teacher of language and literature, I am probably supposed to sneer at Stephenie Meyer’s novels. They are not just genre fiction but, by blending urban fantasy and romance, genre fiction twice over; they are not only written for the young adult market, but they also avoid offending the sensitivities of Mormon readers; and their prose does not insist that you stop and weep over its sheer beauty.
Mormons and vampires—a strange combination, indeed. Stephenie Meyer first brought them together in her mock-epic series of Twilight novels, a contemporary literary phenomenon that sprang, true to the classic gothic impulse, from the author’s vividly persistent dream. The series tracks Isabella (“Bella”) Swan and her “vegetarian” vampire beau, Edward Cullen, as they first meet in Forks, Washington, fall into forbidden love, and, after conquering a series of increasingly threatening obstacles, live happily ever after as immortal husband and wife.
Returning from spring break in 2005, Dr. Donna Freitas, assistant professor of religion at St. Michael’s College, a small Roman Catholic school near Burlington, Vermont, witnessed an epiphany in her “Dating and Friendship” course. One by one, her students admitted to themselves and to each other their profound disappointment in the sexual culture of their school—the “hook-up culture.”
The Widower Eric W Jepson Four years had passed since Mary had died; Torrance still wasn’t comfortable dating and yet here he was, getting married. Five years with Mary may have been too short, but…
I Nora bears the tray of hors d’oeuvres she spent three hours this afternoon preparing. Mushroom caps stuffed with chopped and sauteed artichoke hearts, onion, garlic, bread crumbs, and three cheeses. She approaches the door;…
For more than a week, I thought
cutting off my toe was penance.
I delved a hole for this toe,
a quick, tiny sepulcher at the crook
The alfalfa fields had their own luster
and, besides, no one came
for any harvest. Instead, as children, we drifted
in a golden sea with monarchs, my brother waving
First, it was water:
a marriage festival,
a mother
asking a favor
from her son
And it came:
wine.
The frost grows fierce upon the pane,
crystals cluster in tight geometry. Inside my
glove my fingers freeze. I gasp the cold until I
am dumb: until my eyes are arctic marbles
rolling blue and plumb in their sockets: until
my leaden tongue sinks in my mouth.