I'm reading Dying in the Sun.
I read it in 1979, when I was 40.
Now I'm 70. Closer to the age
of the people in the book. It makes me
grateful to be healthy, in possession of all
my faculties. Happily married, with a healthy wife.
We're both failing by degrees, but it has only just started.
Not much ahead of us to look forward to. But it isn't here yet.
Man, that was a sobering book. Reminded me or Orwell's
"How the Poor Die." Not graciously. Not in America in 2009.
This is not a good country to be poor in. It's not a good country
to be a writer. This book is why Florida matters. And I don't mean
that one, I mean this one.