My Life as an Animal

A woman meets a man and falls in love. She is sixty, a writer and lifelong New Yorker raised by garmentos. She thought this kind of thing wouldnt happen again. He is English, so who knows what he thinks. He is fifty-six, a professor now living in Arizona, the son of a bespoke tailor. As the first of Laurie Stones linkedstories begins, the writer contemplates what life would be like in the desert with the professor. As we learn how she became the person she is, we also come to know the artists and politics of the downtown scene of the 70s, 80s, and 90s, a cultural milieu that remains alive in her. In sharply etched prose, Stone presentsa woman constantly seduced by strangers, language, the streetseven a wildlife trail. Her characters realize that they feel at home in dislocationin always living in two places at the same time: east and west, past and present, the bed and the grave (or copper urn). Love may not last, the writer knows. Then again, when hasanything you thought about the future turned out right?