lines and phrases and sections that struck me particularly. What I want to say most of all, though, is that it is a pure pleasure to read your writing. I am honored by your candor, honored to know you have trusted me as an audience.
Your emotional honesty and flair for writing are very good for someone your age. I appreciate how the entries range from savagely funny (even a little bit Holdenesque at times, which I’m sure isn’t accidental) to melancholy and derisive. You cover the whole spectrum of moods here. Though you make some statements that might alarm some readers, I want you to know that I don’t disregard these comments, but I am not easily shocked by them, either. I am someone you can always come to with such thoughts and issues, and if coming to me with them helps, then so much the better. You mentioned something about a therapist in one of your entries—do you ever think about trying a different one? Do you think there would be any value in doing so?
Sometimes seeing the world too clearly can misfire and result in hurting oneself badly, but in my opinion, the clarity is still worth it in the end. In the best-case scenario, it can make you something quite special in this world. I know this may offer you little consolation now, but it is something to keep in mind for the future.
Sincerely,
Vera Lundy
She had considered signing it, “Yours, Vera Lundy,” but decided at the last minute that that might be too much. She had said quite enough already, even while trying not to.
Chapter Four
The first morning of her fifth week of teaching, Vera sat reading an online journal article called “Criminology and the False Confession,” written by a criminal psychologist named T. E. Rubin. It was still dark out—not yet 5:00 A.M. —and her overhead light burned over her as she stretched out catlike on her bed, listening to the starchy calls of the chickadees outside her window, vocal and vigorous after a long and subdued night. The article stated nothing she didn’t already know, yet it struck her as especially resonant, the way a certain song heard at a certain time seems to hold all the answers to the world.
When the person making the false confession is delusional, the false confession becomes his reality. But in the case of the nondelusional confessor, the confession itself helps him to feel grounded in a reality that had heretofore rejected him. Taking credit for a crime often becomes a highly public action, one that the world responds to. The confession, then, becomes a misguided attempt at achieving intimacy between him and the rest of society.
It was interesting, Vera thought, to compare Ivan Schlosser’s ready confession (
Well, what do you want to know?
) to the initial false confession of Ritchie Ouelette. Had Ritchie, too, had a moment when he thought a confession might bring him closer to the world instead of further away from it, like a kid who seeks negative attention in a wrongheaded attempt to garner a mother’s love?
Looking up from her reading and tapping her pen meditatively against the page, Vera smiled to herself. She knew what she and her girls would be discussing first thing tomorrow.
• • •
“Intimacy,” Vera announced at the beginning of her first-period class. “Isn’t that a pretty-sounding word?
Intimacy
. Some people name their daughters Chastity. Why not name them Intimacy? It has just as much of a ring, doesn’t it?”
Clutching her library copy of
The Catcher in the Rye
, Vera paced the floor of the morning class, speaking of intimacy and how it related to Holden Caulfield’s fleeting desires to connect with the opposite sex. “What do you make of that behavior?” she asked her students. “What do you think is the driving force behind it?”
“Desperation,” Jamie said.
“Ah,” Vera said, giving Jamie a congratulatory little rap on her desk as she walked past. “Good answer. But what does desperation
mean
? Have you ever felt it? Tell me what
Your emotional honesty and flair for writing are very good for someone your age. I appreciate how the entries range from savagely funny (even a little bit Holdenesque at times, which I’m sure isn’t accidental) to melancholy and derisive. You cover the whole spectrum of moods here. Though you make some statements that might alarm some readers, I want you to know that I don’t disregard these comments, but I am not easily shocked by them, either. I am someone you can always come to with such thoughts and issues, and if coming to me with them helps, then so much the better. You mentioned something about a therapist in one of your entries—do you ever think about trying a different one? Do you think there would be any value in doing so?
Sometimes seeing the world too clearly can misfire and result in hurting oneself badly, but in my opinion, the clarity is still worth it in the end. In the best-case scenario, it can make you something quite special in this world. I know this may offer you little consolation now, but it is something to keep in mind for the future.
Sincerely,
Vera Lundy
She had considered signing it, “Yours, Vera Lundy,” but decided at the last minute that that might be too much. She had said quite enough already, even while trying not to.
Chapter Four
The first morning of her fifth week of teaching, Vera sat reading an online journal article called “Criminology and the False Confession,” written by a criminal psychologist named T. E. Rubin. It was still dark out—not yet 5:00 A.M. —and her overhead light burned over her as she stretched out catlike on her bed, listening to the starchy calls of the chickadees outside her window, vocal and vigorous after a long and subdued night. The article stated nothing she didn’t already know, yet it struck her as especially resonant, the way a certain song heard at a certain time seems to hold all the answers to the world.
When the person making the false confession is delusional, the false confession becomes his reality. But in the case of the nondelusional confessor, the confession itself helps him to feel grounded in a reality that had heretofore rejected him. Taking credit for a crime often becomes a highly public action, one that the world responds to. The confession, then, becomes a misguided attempt at achieving intimacy between him and the rest of society.
It was interesting, Vera thought, to compare Ivan Schlosser’s ready confession (
Well, what do you want to know?
) to the initial false confession of Ritchie Ouelette. Had Ritchie, too, had a moment when he thought a confession might bring him closer to the world instead of further away from it, like a kid who seeks negative attention in a wrongheaded attempt to garner a mother’s love?
Looking up from her reading and tapping her pen meditatively against the page, Vera smiled to herself. She knew what she and her girls would be discussing first thing tomorrow.
• • •
“Intimacy,” Vera announced at the beginning of her first-period class. “Isn’t that a pretty-sounding word?
Intimacy
. Some people name their daughters Chastity. Why not name them Intimacy? It has just as much of a ring, doesn’t it?”
Clutching her library copy of
The Catcher in the Rye
, Vera paced the floor of the morning class, speaking of intimacy and how it related to Holden Caulfield’s fleeting desires to connect with the opposite sex. “What do you make of that behavior?” she asked her students. “What do you think is the driving force behind it?”
“Desperation,” Jamie said.
“Ah,” Vera said, giving Jamie a congratulatory little rap on her desk as she walked past. “Good answer. But what does desperation
mean
? Have you ever felt it? Tell me what
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