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“... gluttony or for his enterprise.What am I? – I wonder, dear god – now best known for.Listen to Diane Williams discuss her stories on the LRB ...”

“... He’d never quite seen anyone in that state before, even though he has a mother and all that.Today Lizzie is, he thinks, irresistibly plaintive.Then the doorbell jerked the husband to his feet.Does Lizzie live here?Who are you?Where did she go? Where did Lizzie go?Who wants to know?Lizzie meant to answer hurriedly and hotly, but nevertheless stayed hidden ...”

“... Tell them all to leave. I won’t look!’ her husband had said. He’d just returned from a visit to town when he said, ‘Tell your boyfriends to leave!’ ‘Oh, darling,’ his wife said, ‘I’m in the garden,’ and she went back outside to stand a moment near the flowering vine – the trained pillar form by the doorway. Not today – none of the boyfriends were with her today and she felt poorly on account of it ...”

“... One woman grew her hair so long it dragged across the floor as she walked. People thought she was pleasing to look at and she wore highly decorated clothing. And facing the gods was joyful for her too. Foremost, she had to face herself – and she thought she was so inspirational. She did not see her darker purposes … These lay far away in veiled areas ...”

“... I was able to get Harriet Mounce to shriek and I think I must have thought any shriek would do.When she first stood there naked, I remember she was solemn or she looked annoyed or was she really pained? But she did seem to like me. The cues – she had really focused her eyes on me and she had smiled while on her haunches by the hearth a bit earlier ...”

“... My brother’s words when I hear them these days seem not to go into my ears – but down some other deeper artery. He said, ‘It’s mother’s house and I just think of it as home.’ ‘I would never ever go there today,’ I said. And we were in the middle of a paved two-way drive in the park, having left it up to the pack of people we were in among to decide whether it was prudent for us to cross ...”

“... I had had enough of everything during what I took to be my turn.‘Can I just pet it,’ I said, when Tim and I were in bed, ‘instead of my taking it inside?’ But Tim said no.And then, at the task, he pulled himself back and forth inside of me with many repetitions, enough to get to the next step for him – to stabilise the project. He was cramming rather a lot into the tiny space ...”

“... The Realist‘You can’t really think I would like this!’ and he hands the gift back to his wife. ‘Did you ever know me to have anything like this?’     ‘Yes, me!’Catalpa‘Did you ever find out about that tree?’ the wife asks.     ‘A lady in the park told me – it’s catalpa!’     ‘A lady in the park? Who is the lady in the park?’     ‘She probably had a dog,’ her husband says ...”

“... Eventually the mother died. My wife, was, in spite of everything, very fond of her mother, and had saved a dog abandoned at Vaughn’s – because, she said, the dog reminded her of her mother.      Then why be so careless? Because Molly went up a walkway of stairs with the dog who wasn’t on a leash, and using by-paths – she went far into a part of the park where there were high thickets and the dog disappeared ...”

“... She​ had stopped insisting that they have heart-to-heart conversations, but for stranded people, they had these nice moments together, and he had his professional enjoyment at the newspaper. He approved the issues there with a scientific mind and he made quite a contribution. He was a consultant in the field of efficiency. She should have appreciated that, I guess ...”

“... But this story is not about Chuck. Chuck Chuck, so to say. She cannot have endured the man for long, but she did – because hers is a tale of passion. See how she stroked her salvage – as she dusted the elk family figurines that Chuck gave her – as she tried to bring back strong memories of adoration or lust. And can you believe that? – that Chuck Rosso, whom she had depended on, refused to help her in the shower when she broke her leg ...”

“... So what about the mother and daughter’s shared jealousy, guilt, strain or pain – those?Oh, must everybody have to deal with those?Don’t imagine.The mother is a slightly brave, a slightly unembarrassed person who can be quite social and today she has just written this letter.Dear Teresa,Well, I don’t know how to say I am wretched. It is terribly sad that I am living at the end of the saga ...”

“... Her son is zigzagging on the lawn behind her house and he holds his new toy in his arms as if it is a babe in his arms.It is the Easy Disk – which is painless to catch, cuts through the wind, floats on the water, flies up to one hundred and twenty feet, and is composed of a flexible, grippy material – but still, he has no one to play with.His son is out there also, although his son is not yet old enough to walk, and is not interested in crawling either ...”

“... How best to touch these woody objects or a person?     She batted together the parts of the sycamore stick she had broken in two and then made of them the self-important capital letter T – and she spun one.     She rolled the stick over her thumb and then she tried for greater twirling speed, as she sat on the park bench that bore a personalised inscribed plaque dedicated to MY DEAREST NANCY ...”

“... All Day Rainbow SwirlWe had our shoes off and maybe this was a place where we were washing for gold, somewhat lost in the world.       I see myself at my ease fifty years ago in this old photograph, and I have held on to a vial of gold dust – I don’t know where it is – and a ruby – a ruby crumb really. It is red.       She had begged us – the woman in the picture – to take her along ...”