Granta Books

he would later tell interviewers of his memory of his parents lying in bed, holding hands, reading Ulysses to each other

Dave was in the local paper with a picture, hand up, pouncing on a question. His name appeared again that same year when a poem he wrote about Boneyard Creek, an old irrigation ditch that passed behind the local library, shared first prize:
Did you know that rats breed there?
That garbage is their favorite lair.

then retreat into the pack. He threw snowballs at a classmate on his paper route, then ran away when the boy confronted him, then came back out and threw them again. He mocked the boy’s father’s love of flowers.

And he would name his teams after sections of Ulysses: the Wandering Rocks and Oxen of the Sun. Another year he ran drills and any player who botched one had to listen to a section of Wallace’s life story (made up).

Now they were farmers in name only—

I was introduced to the word hell in her room

When the night was young,