I took this shot from inside a barn on Rte 197, a big tree in the background. Says much to me.

I just finished a brilliant, heartbreaking novel, “The Unnamed” by Joshua Ferris, a skillful a commentary on love, heartbreak and our times as I have read in a long time. Ran out to the  Red Fox in Glens Falls to get his first novel, “Then We Came To The End.” It is always a gift to come across a brilliant new voice in fiction.

“The Unnamed” is the story of the Farnsworths. Tim’s fate is a physical or psychological disease that leaves him walking for days without consciousness or memory, calling his wife to pick up him in various states of cold, hunger and undress. The love of this couple for one another is as compelling as the very sad currents that keep pulling them apart. It is ultimately a story about heartbreak, and sometimes I feel as if my heart is broken. Don’t we all?

I was near  tears at the end. Couldn’t stop reading it. This is a wonderful book, and I sat up until l a.m. to finish it, thinking about how much is says about our disconnected times and our ability to not see one another. Also a lot about medicine, society and rootlessness. And love. Tim, a successful lawyer, wanders and wanders and slips in and out of our disconnected, unseeing, valueless society. I am taking “Then We Came To The End” on the plane to Orlando Monday, when Maria and I head for Florida for a few days to reexperience warmth. I am turning off my mind, except for reading Ferris and Marquez and a French mystery. I met a wonderful woman – Sharon – in Red Fox who bought seven of my books while I was standing there. Nice for a writer.

I want to see the Magic Kingdom again, of course, and then Splash Mountain, and also Sea World. Otherwise, reading and walking and talking and maybe meditating by the pool a bit.