Page 16 "...the New York Yankees were the Liberators of Oppressed..."

From page 16 of the book:  "...His subscriptions to baseball tabloids and the arsenal of baseball encyclopedias filled his bedroom bookshelves to the point of mania.  When he had first met her, he'd told Sarah, self-righteously, that the New York Yankees were the Liberators of Oppressed Peoples Everywhere."

Page 8 "...the quashed livelihoods of World War Two London and Dresden..."

From page 8 of the book:  "...While Owen complained of the mayor's lack of sensitivity toward Queens, Manhattan being the borough of choice, I pictured him--Owen--and myself standing amidst the quashed livelihoods of World War Two London and Dresden, with no hope in the world except for defeat, with no direction in our lives except toward sadness."

Page 6 "...A flight crew strolled past us..."

From page 6 of the book:  "...A flight crew strolled past us toward the locked door of the gate. Smiles all around, there was talk of insurance and "Twin Peaks" and the Bonnie Raitt Collection."

Page 24 "...kept us simultaneously straddled between the Second Republic and the current Mitterand regime."

Francois Mitterand, the 21st President of the French Republic, serving 1981-1995.

Page 18 "...I told him the highways I wanted to take, the N96 to Meyrargues, the N556 to Pertuis, crossing the Durance River, and then west on the D973, along the Canal de Cadenet to our house."

Page 18 "...where the Marquis de Sade, Alphonse Daudet, and Vincent Van Gogh were once living pages of history."

Page 13 Civil War generals Grant and Longstreet



As we passed brownstone cooperatives, restaurants, dance theaters, and the sporadic Irish bar, Owen told me another anecdote about General Longstreet and Ulysses S. Grant.  I could see that for him, reading the Civil War had brought to life the act of making moral and ethical decisions, and this awareness of what awaited his own conscience, his battle wounds, his war between brothers, would be made clear to me in a very short time.