This old man — he played one, he played knick-knack on my thumb.
This old man, my old man, my man, is a long haul trucker. Here last week, gone this week. Back the week after.
Knick-knack, paddy-whack give a dog a bone.
I’m singing to the big old hound lying on the kitchen lino. Useless thing. All saggy skin and knobbly joints anymore. Snufflin’ in his sleep after rabbits he’s never caught. My old man sings that Elvis song to him. Says it’s because Booger is my dog, ain’t no friend of his. Which is why Booger sleeps on his side of the bed when he’s home? I don’t think so. Continue reading
Follow a handful of characters through a single day in Philadelphia. 9 year-old Madeline aspiring jazz singer and newly motherless and in more than a bit of trouble. 
One of the original “things” essays. It didn’t age all that well. I was hoping from something much more accomplished and much less out of date. 
The title only comes clear in the last few paragraphs of the book. The journey to the singing of the unburied is painful and tender all at once. A story of three generations of bayou people living in an enchanted, haunted world. 
At the end of the second world war, Charlie — a young aimless woman, arrives in Europe with her mother and the need to sort out a Little Problem. 
