“... reflects on the many women who have punctuated his long journey home, including one ‘playing ball on the sand,/A suggestion of hair under your arms’. (That caught the ‘seedy’ side of Mr Bloom, Longley noted.) But the true fruition of his version of the mythical method came later, starting with the sequence of retold Homeric episodes in Gorse Fires ...”

“... in whose capacity to read and write, and in her willingness to teach them both to a young slave, Douglas begins to discover the instrument both of freedom and revenge. Fear of domination for Hawthorne resides in the spectre of homosexual rape carried out by an older man – specifically, a domineering uncle-guardian named Robert Manning, whose bed and board ...”

“... and generalised wickedness, I was reminded of an essay about risk by the anthropologist Mary Douglas. Douglas argued that in traditional (‘primitive’) societies misfortune was explained as an effect of sorcery and witchcraft; under Christianity it was understood as sin, though sin functioned in much the same way as ...”

“... sandstone. In Tucson he discovered that the soles of each foot had become a single blister, from ball to heel, like a gel pack. He was deported again and on his next attempt, shortly afterwards, he and his companions were spotted by Border Patrol. During the chase he lost his food and water. He survived for two days (it was October) and eventually made it to ...”