This, after all, was the month in which families began tightening and closing and sealing; from Thanksgiving to the New Year, everybody's world contracted, day by day, into the microcosmic single festive household, each with its own rituals and obsessions, rules and dreams. You didn't feel you could call people. They didn't feel they could phone you. How does one cry for help from these seasonal prisons?


On Beauty: A Novel (ed. Penguin, 2005) - ISBN: 9781101218112


This, after all, was the month in which families began tightening and closing and sealing; from Thanksgiving to the New Year, everybody's world...

This, after all, was the month in which families began tightening and closing and sealing; from Thanksgiving to the New Year, everybody's world...

This, after all, was the month in which families began tightening and closing and sealing; from Thanksgiving to the New Year, everybody's world...

This, after all, was the month in which families began tightening and closing and sealing; from Thanksgiving to the New Year, everybody's world...