Only a quarter of the way in, but this book is giving me LIFE.
“Marcy was old to us—thirty-nine—but she was a punk too, only the lines were deeper in her face and she had more stories. She wore her hair long the way a guy wore it long, and she wore men’s jeans that rode low on her hips and motorcycle boots. … My mother and Marcy were two entirely different species. All the women of Westerly, Nebraska, were, by that age, of a gender unto itself. They wore their hair practical. Dressed medium. By choice or by default, their lives cycled around the school day and the working week and the national holiday. They bought milk in plastic gallon jugs and baked bars. Television commercials for food and household products targeted them. They were consumers, savers, caretakers, voters. Marcy was a bass player, a smoker, a lover, no one’s parent, no one’s partner. She was a whole other possibility. She was a protagonist. She was wise and not wise. She had just kept on living, as herself.”
—Stray City, by Chelsey Johnson
Indicative Mood 