Title page of La relación (1542), reproduced in The Journey of Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca (1922). They made their moves in the late hours and reestablished their prestige. They told a series of tales that were quite unusual, and the other liars looked at them with awe and admiration. Due to the peculiar nature of these stories they cannot be given here. There was weird stuff in them, and we haven’t the presence or style of Esteban and Dorantes to carry them off with a fl

So does Hell seem an altogether pleasant place, when it comes with its both hands full of enticements. —Where Have You Been, Sandaliotis? Some interpretations on the blog will seem really out there. I would defend them with confidence, from arguments about being inside a female reproductive system in “Flaming Ducks and Giant Bread” to the reading of “Junkyard Thoughts” as a story about a mental breakdown taking the form of a dissociative episode. However, the interpretation I

Dotty herself was never sentimental, and it would not be decent to get sentimental on her behalf. — Chapter 2, Dotty Having just “reached her majority” at novel’s end, which by Texas law would have meant turning 18 years of age, 18 years into which she has packed several lives’ worth of incident and grief and loss . . . — Andrew Ferguson, on Dotty This afternoon, I revised my Dotty resource and started thinking about the novel’s somewhat murky chronology. Dotty is young at th