" Let her use it while it lasts; because people tend to forget, it is the ultimate reason for everything else, the reason for barns and goats and harvests and colleges; the reason for new brassiere designs and beatnik fathers and Eric's perfect SAT score and the real estate underfoot and the paperwork Carla does all morning in her office. A young girl is the flower upon all that root and stem."


excerpt from The Mere Mortal
by Louis B. Jones