The man in the window

The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author Text copyright © 1992 Jon Cohen Introduction and Readers’ Guide copyright © 2013 Nancy Pearl All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher Published by AmazonEncore P.O Box 400818 Las Vegas, NV 89140 ISBN-13: 9781477848937 ISBN-10: 1477848932 CONTENTS Introduction Dedication PART ONE THE MONSTER OF WAVERLY CHAPTER ONE CHAPTER TWO CHAPTER THREE CHAPTER FOUR CHAPTER FIVE PART TWO THE MAN IN THE WINDOW CHAPTER ONE CHAPTER TWO CHAPTER THREE CHAPTER FOUR CHAPTER FIVE CHAPTER SIX CHAPTER SEVEN PART THREE WIDOWS AND WIDOWERS CHAPTER ONE CHAPTER TWO PART FOUR THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS CHAPTER ONE CHAPTER TWO CHAPTER THREE CHAPTER FOUR PART FIVE FLAMES CHAPTER ONE CHAPTER TWO CHAPTER THREE CHAPTER FOUR CHAPTER FIVE Afterword Acknowledgements Reader’s Guide for The Man in the Window Discussion Questions Suggestions for Further Reading About the Author About Nancy Pearl About Book Lust Rediscoveries Introduction PROBABLY THE question that I’m most often asked by people is, “How you choose what you’re going to read?” and I don’t really have a good answer for them I can relate to the novelist Carrie Brown (my favorite book of hers is Lamb in Love) who described herself as being “a promiscuous reader.” I’ll give almost any book a chance to have its way with me I read all sorts of nonfiction (pretty much everything, in fact, but generally not self-help books, unless they’re by Harriet Lerner—my favorite of hers is The Dance of Anger) History and current events have always been two of my particular nonfiction favorites And of course I read a lot of fiction, both literary and genre (which is not to say that I think a sharp line can be drawn between the two) I usually start off the process of identifying my next book by cruising the shelves in a bookstore or library, looking for jacket art that seduces my eye or a title that tugs at my mind I know from long experience that if the author’s name on the cover is in a bigger font size than the title, then I can be pretty sure the book is aimed directly at the best-seller list and therefore probably isn’t one that I want to take to bed (where I a lot of my reading) with me Then I open the book to a random page in order to get a sense of whether it’s worth my while trying to develop a relationship with it or whether I’m better off putting it back on the shelf where I found it, knowing that it’s not right for me (Kind of like a first date.) For example, if I discover that I’m going to be inside the head of a vicious serial killer—or sociopaths in general —even if it’s only in the first chapter or in alternate chapters, then it’s a nogo I remember once asking a little boy—he must have been about or 8— what kind of books he liked “No dead dogs,” he told me I knew exactly what he meant For me, it’s no murdered, or tortured, or sexually abused children I study the blurbs on the back of the book, not so much to see what they say about the book (they’re all, obviously, going to wax eloquent about how wonderful it is; otherwise they wouldn’t be there) but rather who’s saying it If the blurbists are writers or reviewers whom I respect, I’m more inclined to read the book I also check to see if the quotes are taken from reviews in newspapers or magazines, or if they were solicited from the author’s friends or the editor’s contacts in the literary world There was a column called “Logrolling in Our Time” in the (very) late, (very) lamented Spy magazine that revealed authors each of whom wrote a glowing blurb for the other’s book If the blurbists all live within hailing distance of each other, I don’t take it as a good sign Believe me, read enough and you get to know these things, like where the authors live Writers are asked to blurb books all the time—I receive at least one request a week (Margaret Atwood has a wonderful poem called “Letter sent in reply to requests for blurbs” that speaks to this; it’s easy to find on the Internet.) I found Jon Cohen’s The Man in the Window when I was working as the head of collection development at the Tulsa (OK) City-County Library System in the spring of 1992, right after it had been published It was displayed face out on the “New Books” shelf I didn’t love the cover, which was in various shades of green and brown and centered on a Picasso-esque painting of a man’s head and upper body apparently looking out through (or maybe embedded in, it was hard to tell) a window There was nothing especially wrong with it (I am a great fan of cubism), but there wasn’t anything that I found especially appealing, either I turned the book over and looked at the blurbs on the back of the jacket One, from an author I wasn’t familiar with, was for the book I was holding The other four, taken from newspaper reviews, referred to Cohen’s first novel, Max Lakeman and the Beautiful Stranger, which I hadn’t read No obvious turn-offs, so far, but neither was I hearing that little voice (the one that I never tire of; that delights me, still) telling me that this might be a book I didn’t want to miss So what made me open The Man in the Window to the first page and start reading? It was, perhaps illogically, actually the size and shape of the book itself Not its thickness, nor the number of its pages, but rather its length and breadth It was a hardcover, but was the size and shape of a trade paperback, which were not as ubiquitous in the early 1990s as they are now It looked like it would be utterly comfortable to hold It looked like a book that could easily be lost amongst the bigger and brawnier novels on the shelf, the runt of the litter, so to speak, and I just couldn’t resist giving it a chance to win me over And when I read the entrancing first line of The Man in the Window, I knew I’d made no mistake Here was a novel to love And so it proved to be That first line—“Atlas Malone saw the angel again, this time down by the horse chestnut tree.”—made it impossible for me to put the book down I loved the interplay of the fantastic—an angel!—with the utterly prosaic—a horse chestnut tree And the specificity: not just any old chestnut tree, but a horse chestnut (I have to say here that, not being a gardener or arborist, I never knew there were such things as horse chestnut trees before I read The Man in the Window You read and learn.) And that simple word “again.” How could I bear not to find out when Atlas encountered an angel before? Clearly, this was a book that was written with a reader like me in mind For many years, whenever I was asked to give a talk about good books to read, I would include The Man in the Window, and I’d describe it to the audience this way: When he was sixteen, Louis Malone was caught in a fire that erupted at his father’s hardware store He was burned so badly that for the next sixteen years he didn’t go out of his family’s house, spending his days watching the outside world through his second story bedroom window And even in the house he covered up the terrible scars on his face by wearing a scarf around his mouth and chin and a baseball cap with a Pittsburgh Pirates logo pulled down low over his forehead But one day Louis reenters that world, falling from, or somehow being impelled through, the window that he’s been hiding behind for so many years Rushed to the hospital by neighbors who are wild with curiosity to find out what he looks like underneath his hat and scarf (which he manages to keep on despite the fall and a broken arm), he meets Iris Shula, an Intensive Care nurse who’s covering the emergency room when he arrives Iris describes herself as being four foot seven and weighing one hundred fifty-five “very poorly distributed pounds,” with “a nose like a boxer’s, and the complexion of a corpse.” Then I’d read from the book: “Iris had been an unappealing baby—and babyhood, as it turned out, was her physical high point She went from unappealing to unattractive, and by the time she moved into adolescence, she’d become undeniably homely Even her parents, who loved her, who gave her every benefit of the doubt and then some, could not dispute the evidence.” And I’d conclude by saying that Iris, in her own way, had been just as alone in the outside world as Louis had been in his upstairs room And that the relationship that slowly develops between Louis and Iris both breaks and remakes the reader’s heart and offers some good laughs along the way Usually when I’m perusing book jacket copy, I take words like lifeaffirming, heartwarming, touching, uplifting, poignant, and tender as a warning: DO NOT READ, LIKELY TO BE SENTIMENTAL CLAPTRAP But in the hands of that all too rare writer who respects his readers and doesn’t try to manipulate them through cheap emotions and easy tears, a book can be deeply satisfying because it is so authentically life-affirming and heart-warming, etc Cohen is such a writer, and The Man in the Window is such a novel Nancy Pearl shaded window above her, where no one stood A light breeze carried the fiery odor from Kitty’s house, and Iris understood that even though the flames had not touched him, Louis had been burned When Gracie finished, Iris said in her strongest nurse’s voice, the voice she used to infuse hope in a patient’s family, “I’m going in to see him now, Mrs Malone.” Gracie said nothing, but moved aside to let her pass Iris stepped once again into the dark house, uncertain that she could rescue this man from the same disaster twice Louis lay perfectly still, stretched out on his bed, his hands folded across his stomach His breathing was so shallow his chest didn’t rise, at least not discernibly; but he was moving air because his purple scarf puffed up from his mouth at rhythmic intervals His eyes were open, but he wasn’t in the room He was far away; he had placed himself on a green hillside at the farm, roaming the grass in search of strawberries His scarf loosely around his neck, his hat shaded his exposed skin from the warm sun The wind picked up, and it was cool on his face, and the strawberries were tart and sweet, and the tall dry grass brushed lightly against the sides of his legs as he walked along Louis, in the bed, breathed more slowly He touched another strawberry to his tongue and sat in the grass, gazing down into the small valley at the pond He could just see Gracie at the end of the dock, her feet dangling in the dim water Beyond her, Atlas floated on a black inner tube, his body turning slowly this way and then that way, like a compass settling on a bearing At last, he did settle for a long moment, facing the hillside where Louis sat half-hidden in the grass Louis saw him lift an arm out of the dark water, and as Atlas waved, drops of water like glittering diamonds fell into the pond When the last diamond disappeared below the surface of the water, Louis returned his wave Louis, in his bed, raised an arm, then let it fall back on the quilt Did he know Iris was standing just outside his door? If he did, it was only for an instant, and then he was gone again, beyond her presence to a place she couldn’t get to The place was Malone’s Hardware on a Saturday long ago, and he was standing on Yank Spiller’s shoulders reaching toward a top shelf for a spool of 10-gauge brass wire “Tell you a secret,” Yank whispered to Louis as he eased him back down to the floor “That ain’t brass at all It’s gold.” Louis’s eyes grew wide “Sure,” said Yank, smiling “Gold Malone’s Hardware is full of stuff like that, stuff you think is one thing but is really something else.” Louis fingered the spool of deep yellow wire, then looked up at Yank “Well, how come we sell it? How come we don’t keep it?” “We did keep it, didn’t we? For a while, anyways And now it’s time to let someone else have it.” Louis started up the aisle where Mr Jimmons waited at the counter for his wire “Do you think Mr Jimmons knows it’s gold?” Louis whispered to Yank just before they reached the counter “I’m not sure But you and me know, and that’s good enough.” The store was crowded with Saturday customers, and Louis, in his shorts and T-shirt, moved easily among them, answering questions, fetching ballpeen hammers and jigsaw blades, making trips to the basement for Atlas Atlas eased the customers through the store like a traffic cop, pointing, gesturing, maintaining a steady flow, avoiding snarls in the cluttered aisles and around the counter He was a marvel, and so was his deputy, Yank, although Yank’s efforts were more subtle—he was not a man to draw attention to himself Yank would often appear with something off a shelf before a customer had articulated his need for it “I need that gadget,” Louis overheard one man start to say to Atlas, “you know, that thingamabob that goes around the, um, the…” and then easy as you please Yank was at the customer’s side, holding a two-way stopcock “That’s it!” the man exclaimed with a smile “Give me three.” And Yank pulled two more out of his pocket and nodded in anticipation of the “Thanks” the customer didn’t have time to say before Yank disappeared to the back of the store Louis, unmoving in his bed, his breathing slowed now to a rate that just sustained his heartbeat, whispered a word “Thanks,” he said Louis looked around the hardware store, at the Saturday customers coming in and out, at Atlas grinning and telling a story as he rang up a sale on the old cash register, at Yank lining a shelf with new stock, arranging and rearranging until everything was just right Louis looked at the worn wooden planks of the store, at the rows of shiny tools, and at a reflection of himself in a box of bicycle rearview mirrors, a reflection of a young boy in the perfect place for boys He smiled at himself, astonished by the pink health of his cheeks, the sleek shape of his nose, the curve of his soft lips He wanted to stare at himself forever, to stay in the moment forever, in the hardware store, in the world he and Yank understood, watched over by Atlas Yes, this is where he would stay “Louis.” Louis looked once more into the mirror, then turned slowly to the customer’s voice, which repeated his name “Louis,” came the woman’s voice “Are you there?” He turned to face the woman, but he was alone in the aisle He moved his eyes this way and that, in search of her among the dense clutter of the store “It’s me,” said the voice, pulling at him “Iris.” In bed, Louis opened his eyes, and stared at the blank white of his bedroom ceiling He took a deep breath and closed them again “You’re there, I know you are,” said Iris She waited Then she spoke again “I heard, Louis About last night I heard what happened.” Louis closed his eyes tightly and tried to leave again He imagined the grassy hills of the farm, and the crowded store But Iris came after him “It was a terrible thing, what Kitty Wilson did.” Iris placed her hand on his door, gently, as if she were touching Louis “But she was just talking crazy, you know that You know that.” He knew only that Kitty would never find him in the hardware store, hidden amidst its protective abundance Yank and Atlas would never let her get to him Iris, stop talking Let me go “No one believed her The minute she said it no one believed her, I heard Gracie say so You saved that awful woman, you rescued her That’s what everyone believes, because it’s true.” Louis shifted on the bed Iris pressed against the door, grateful for the sound of life within the bedroom “I know what you’re doing, Louis But you can’t go back to the way it was You won’t make it in there another sixteen years I seen you, Louis I know.” Iris leaned her head against the door and stared at the floor She said, “It’s gonna be that way You just have to move past it That’s what I been doing for thirty-seven years, Louis I just keep moving, right past people like Kitty Wilson, right the hell on by And, Louis, you see, if it was me and you, together, if it was the two of us, don’t you see, nobody could get to us, because we wouldn’t care We wouldn’t even notice them I’d have you,” she said, her voice dropping to a whisper, “and you’d have me.” She pressed so hard against the door, the hinges creaked Oh Iris, Louis thought, his mind flashing to the grassy hillside again But this time he had brought Iris with him, she was at his side, they were arm in arm in the warm sun, roaming the hills, picking strawberries At last, Louis spoke “Iris.” Her head pulled back from the door “Yes?” she said “Yes Louis?” “Stay here with me,” he said She waited for him to go on, but he didn’t “How you mean?” “In here with me Stay in this house with me.” “I’m not sure what… I don’t get what you’re saying, Louis.” Louis sat up on the edge of the bed and faced the door “Don’t go back out there, Iris You don’t have to go out anymore You and I would be together in here, and we wouldn’t have to worry We wouldn’t bother anyone, and no one would bother us.” “But, Louis,” Iris started “I want to be with you, Iris.” I want to be with you Iris placed a hand on his doorknob, and she would turn it, and enter his room, the room of the only man in the world who wanted to be with her Together, they would sit before the window, hands joined, at a distance from all that might harm them In the spring, they would be there watching the azaleas In the summer, they would listen to the crickets In the fall, they would smell the leaves, and in the winter, the snows would not touch them Nothing would touch them, and they would sit, hand in hand, together, day after day, Iris and her Louis She did not turn the doorknob “Oh Louis,” she said softly, letting her hand drop as she stepped back from the door Louis, from his room, could feel her decide “Oh Louis, I’m sorry I can’t it.” Her eyes filled as she spoke “You see, I live outside It hasn’t ever been easy for me But I done the best I could with it, and I found things I enjoy, and lots of things I don’t, and it’s evened out somehow I’d miss it, Louis If I stayed in this house, even with you, I’d miss it I can’t just watch I got to be out here, because it’s where I belong, even though looking at myself I don’t always believe it, that I belong here, but I guess I really do, no matter what So what I’m saying is…” “Good-bye,” whispered Louis Yes, he knew what she was saying She touched one finger to his door, as if to his cheek, and turned quickly down the stairs Louis listened to the sound of Iris leaving him, her footsteps on the stairs, the front door slamming behind her Silence His dark room instantly silent, and too small, and Iris gone He needed light He touched the light switch and that wasn’t enough, because the light he craved came from outside He ran to his window and pulled up the shade, and there was a blaze of light, he was immersed in it, revealed by it Iris walked in the light, across his lawn toward the street, her back to him Louis saw Iris, and below him, in the light of his vision, Gracie and Arnie together on the porch steps, and at the edges of the light, apart from Iris and Gracie and Arnie, there were others At first he couldn’t see them, but gradually, as he stood before his window, he did There was Atlas, yes, Atlas, and at his side stood a woman Louis didn’t know but who must have been LuLu They were smiling They lifted their hands in greeting, and so did Bev and Bert, because they were there too, and Yank Spiller Yank smiled shyly, and he waved, and so did Carl, and Mrs Meem, with her dog sitting beside her wagging its tail Yes, there was Harvey Mastuzek, and Jim Rose, and Mr Hollister, his old gym teacher, and all of Louis’s school friends, and Francine Koessler lifting Minky’s paw and waving it up to him Ariel Nesmith touched her hand to her lips and threw him a kiss, and Mrs Bingsley stepped out from behind her red azalea, smiling and waving Everyone was there Louis pressed himself against the window glass, turned away from his room and the years alone that he had spent there, his eyes on Iris moving across the front lawn, his eyes on everyone he had ever known The glass trembled and bent as he pressed still harder against it, as he understood that he would join them and the world they lived in, the world they were Louis, the window splintering around him, entered the light “Iris,” he cried Iris already knew What made her turn at the moment before Louis jumped through his window, how did she know? But knowing, she did turn, and ran toward him, ran as she had never run before She was back across the lawn in an instant, even before Gracie, standing on the porch steps, had time to react Iris positioned herself, planted her feet firmly in the tulip bed, and watched him come to her, the two ends of his scarf fluttering behind him like purple wings She looked up at Louis, and beyond him to the sky, her strong arms outstretched, ready to break his fall Afterword The world was all before them, where to choose Their place of rest, and Providence their guide: They, hand in hand, with wandering steps and slow, Through Eden took their solitary way John Milton, Paradise Lost Acknowledgements I would like to thank: Nancy Pearl, Theresa Park, Alex Greene, Peter Knapp, Alan Turkus, Mary Hasbrouck, D.E.A Dalton, Molly Cohen, Lucia Kearney, Merrie Lou Cohen, Peter Folger Torrey, Kathy Malone, National Endowment for the Arts Reader’s Guide for The Man in the Window Discussion Questions I SPENT a lovely afternoon in April with Jon Cohen and Mary, his wife I asked him if there were any questions about his novel that he thought would be interesting for book groups to discuss He suggested questions 3, 4, and The original American and British editions of The Man in the Window have slightly different last paragraphs Here is how the American edition ended: Louis pressed himself against the window glass, turned away from his room and the years alone that he had spent there, his eyes on Iris moving across the front lawn, his eyes on everyone he had ever known The glass trembled and bent as he pressed still harder against it, as he understood that he would join them and the world they lived in, the world they were Louis, the window splintering around him, entered the light And here’s the British version: Louis pressed himself against the window glass, turned away from his room and the years alone that he had spent there, his eyes on Iris moving across the front lawn, his eyes on everyone he had ever known The glass trembled and bent as he pressed still harder against it, as he understood that he would join them and the world they lived in, the world they were Louis, the window splintering around him, entered the light “Iris,” he cried Iris already knew What made her turn at the moment before Louis jumped through his window, how did she know? But knowing, she did turn, and ran toward him, ran as she had never run before She was back across the lawn in an instant, even before Gracie, standing on the porch steps, had time to react Iris positioned herself, planted her feet firmly in the tulip bed, and watched him come to her, the two ends of his scarf fluttering behind him like purple wings She looked up at Louis, and beyond him to the sky, her strong arms outstretched, ready to break his fall to earth As you can see, the edition you’re holding has a third version Which one you prefer? Why? Do the different versions lead you to interpret the ending differently? Cohen avoids a Hollywood treatment of his characters: Iris never joins Weight Watchers and becomes svelte; Louis doesn’t find a plastic surgeon who can make his face look like it did before the fire If he had embraced those stereotypically “feel good” conclusions, how would that have changed your feelings about the novel? What are we to make of Atlas seeing an angel, and later Louis seeing his father as an angel, or the Tube Man—who is in a coma—foretelling a meeting between Iris and Louis? Why would Cohen include some elements of magical realism in what is otherwise a very realistic novel? When they reveal their inner thoughts, all the characters in The Man in the Window have deep, almost spiritual revelations about the world and their place in it Is there a specific worldview that all of the characters in the novel share? Is it healthy to see the world in the “unfiltered” way that Louis does? That is, is he overly sensitive to wonder? Do we need to have blinders on to be effective in the world? Suggestions for Further Reading IF WHAT you enjoyed about The Man in the Window was the adroit mix of humor and poignancy, try: It’s the early 1940s in Steve Kluger’s Last Days of Summer, and 12-yearold Brooklynite and baseball fanatic Joey Margolis—who’s badly in need of a father figure in his life—develops an improbable friendship with the N.Y Giants star rookie Charlie Banks Don Robertson’s The Greatest Thing Since Sliced Bread introduces us to 9-year-old Morris Bird III (known by unkind classmates as Morris Bird the Turd) who decides, one day in 1944, to walk to the other side of Cleveland to visit a friend and, pulling his little sister in a wagon, comes face to face with history If you enjoyed looking at the world through the eyes of Louis and Iris, two outsiders, try: In The Dork of Cork by Chet Raymo, Frank Bois, who’s 43 years old and 43 inches high, finds that nothing in his life is the way it was before he wrote a book about the night sky that, totally unexpectedly, became a best seller The title character in Mendel’s Dwarf by Simon Mawer is Dr Benedict Lambert, a geneticist with an abiding interest in his own condition, who finds that his love affair with a shy librarian changes their lives in quite unexpected ways In Elizabeth McCracken’s The Giant’s House, a spinster librarian finds companionship and love with a teenage boy who suffers from a growth disorder that eventually makes him the tallest person in the world Thirty-year-old Lyman, the main character in Joe Coomer’s The Loop, spends his days driving Fort Worth’s loop road picking up road kill for the county and his evenings taking one class after another at the community college But all that changes when first a parrot, and then a young woman (another librarian!), enter his life In Sonia Gernes’s The Way to St Ives, the deaths of her overbearing mother and only brother give Rosie Deane, a middle-aged spinster, the chance, at last, to blossom For those who enjoyed meeting an assortment of quirky characters in The Man in the Window, try: Tim Winton’s Cloudstreet is the story of two families—the Pickles and the Lambs—who are brought together at first by the hard times in Australia following World War II and at last by a marriage Timothy Schaffert’s The Coffins of Little Hope features quirky characters, humor, compassion, and insight into human strengths and foibles The narrator, 83-year-old Essie Myles, copes with the numerous complications of family and work as she writes the obituaries for the County Paragraph, her grandson Doc’s small-town Nebraska newspaper When Quintus Horatius Flaccus, the eponymous main character in Horace Afoot by Frederick Reuss, tries to seal himself off from the rest of world by moving to a small town called Oblivion, he finds the task much harder than he expected And Jon Cohen suggests these novels for readers who enjoyed The Man in the Window: T R Pearson’s A Short History of a Small Place is a marvelous celebration of small town eccentrics Nicholson Baker’s The Mezzanine illustrates how even the smallest bit of the world, acutely observed, can fill the soul; very similar to the way Louis observes the minutiae of his world Karen Russell’s St Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves is a celebration of the very off-kilter (as are her next two works of fiction: Swamplandia! and Vampires in the Lemon Grove) Rainer Maria Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet are meticulously sensitive letters that Louis Malone might have written to the world John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars gives an unflinching view of illness and disability, but still chooses to embrace life and is darkly humorous This is the world as Iris Shula would see it About the Author Photo by Andy Shelter JON COHEN, a former critical care nurse, wrote his first novel between hospital shifts and raising two children After receiving a creative writing grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, he turned to writing full time His two novels, both critically acclaimed, are The Man in the Window and Max Lakeman and the Beautiful Stranger Setting his sights on Hollywood, he purchased a “how-to” book on screenwriting He has since written numerous screenplays for Fox, Warner Bros and Sony, and is the cowriter of Minority Report, directed by Steven Spielberg Jon lives with his wife outside of Philadelphia and is currently working on a new novel About Nancy Pearl NANCY PEARL is a librarian and lifelong reader She regularly comments on books on National Public Radio’s Morning Edition Her books include 2003’s Book Lust: Recommended Reading for Every Mood, Moment, and Reason; 2005’s More Book Lust: 1,000 New Reading Recommendations for Every Mood, Moment, and Reason; Book Crush: For Kids and Teens: Recommended Reading for Every Mood, Moment, and Interest, published in 2007; and 2010’s Book Lust To Go: Recommended Reading for Travelers, Vagabonds, and Dreamers Among her many awards and honors are the 2011 Librarian of the Year Award from Library Journal; the 2011 Lifetime Achievement Award from the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association; the 2010 Margaret E Monroe Award from the Reference and Users Services Association of the American Library Association; and the 2004 Women’s National Book Association Award, given to “a living American woman who… has done meritorious work in the world of books beyond the duties or responsibilities of her profession or occupation.” About Book Lust Rediscoveries BOOK LUST REDISCOVERIES is a series devoted to reprinting some of the best (and now out of print) novels originally published between 1960–2000 Each book is personally selected by Nancy Pearl and includes an introduction by her as well as discussion questions for book groups and a list of recommended further reading ... easy to find on the Internet.) I found Jon Cohen’s The Man in the Window when I was working as the head of collection development at the Tulsa (OK) City-County Library System in the spring of 1992,... when dead things are in the air Gracie let them in, the women who came in twos or threes, never alone, and endured again and again the awful awkward moment as they all stood there in the front... Atlas, then suddenly pulled back and stared down the yard at the lengthening shadows, and pointed there, then there, raising his finger a little each time, until at last he pointed straight up in the