“I hate the taste of alcohol—beer, wine, whiskey, all of it,” he said to me once, a statement which bemused me initially because he was always drinking.
But there came a time when I understood that it was never about the actual act of consumption or the actual act of sex for Parker; rather, it was about doing what he could to keep the deadness alive within him. His pain didn’t thrive within the deadness, it prospered within the aliveness. It latched on to hope and ambition. It proliferated in love. It succeeded in passion and concern and enthusiasm. But, as Parker had discovered, his pain withered in apathy and detachment and indifference.
—An excerpt from my forthcoming novel Isn’t It Pretty To Think So? The first 40 pages have been uploaded here.
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