“The other night, lying in bed at the Hotel Herodion, I saw Andrea get up and pull the curtains. I have seen this before. She is a light sleeper and, when she wakes…

“To my mind, Bateman’s writing, which defies categorization (see Nin Andrews’ and Kathryn Nuernberger’s blurbs), is as close to non-fiction as poetry gets if, by non-fiction, you mean quantum mechanics. But hers is…

“Ongoing, abrupt climate change is rooted in human behavior underlain by natural selection. Ongoing, irreversible climate change is rooted in human behavior underlain by natural selection. These young people have no more control over abrupt, irreversible climate…

“Then, the other guy came up and sounded pretty good, good enough that Buddy allowed him to finish the remainder of the set. Afterward, Buddy hired him, with the hope that he would…

“The children keep asking where/the other children are. Their mothers won’t say/phony life-vests pulled them toward the bottom/while breakers drove them into jagged cliffs./Tourists on their morning walk won’t see/the skins of boats…

“I never liked church. It was boring and stupid, and if not for the little wooden dowels you could pop out of the missalette rack with a carefully prizing fingernail, I would have…

“I whirled to face him, and saw a red-faced Englishman, staring at me belligerently. He was responsible for the production of the prototype furnishings. Not far from him stood a tall young Sudanese…

“The memories—because I was a privileged child in many ways—were not unpleasant. I never heard my parents fight, for instance. They didn’t raise their voices toward one another (and rarely toward anyone else).…

“We then come to what is, for me, the most astonishing passage in the whole book. Harry says he has no problem with the concept of monarchy, despite his treatment, despite the ill-gotten…

“Early on, in our stay, we were a bit less wary of the challenges presented by driving on Serifos. Approaching the main habitation, Hora, from the east, and thinking to avoid driving first…