#184 The Hat- T.C. Boyle
Like within a family, personalities are magnified in small
communities. You can’t hide, and everyone becomes something of a caricature or
a stereotype. This tiny deep mountain community in the Sierras has 27
year-round residents. Jill and Michael are two. Of the 25 others, only 3 were
woman, 2 of those were married and old, and the other a drunken walleyed
man-hating poetess. So you can imagine, during the long winter months, things
could get a bit ornery.
“I’d read somewhere that nine out of ten adults in Alaska
had a drinking problem. I could believe it. Snow, ice, sleet, wind, the dark
night of the soul: what else were you supposed to do?”
And drink they did, all day and night. Visitors and seasonal
residents made things interesting, and so do bears that stalk the food stores
of the only bar in town.
Notable Passage: “Her tone was so soft, so contrite, so
sweet and friendly and conciliatory, that I could actually feel the great big
heavy plates of the world shifting back into alignment beneath my feet.”
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