During a warm winter rain … the basins of her collarbones collected water.

We Greeks are a moody people. Suicide makes sense to us. Putting up Christmas lights after your own daughter does it—that makes no sense. What my yia yia could never understand about America was why...

When we asked him to sum up his impression of the girls’ emotional state at that point, he said, “Buffeted but not broken.

Even our parents seemed to agree more and more with the television version of things, listening to the reporters’ inanities as though they could tell us the truth about our own lives.

O Earth, lie heavily upon her eyes;Seal her sweet eyes weary of watching Earth;Lie close around her; leave no room for mirthWith its harsh laughter, nor for sound of sighs.She hath no questions, she hath...

Virgin suicideWhat was that she cried?No use in stayin’On this holocaust rideShe gave me her cherryShe’s my virgin suicide

Mr. Lisbon had the feeling that he didn’t know who she was, that children were only strangers you agreed to live with.

They didn’t exchange a single word. But in the weeks that followed, Trip spent his days wandering the halls, hoping for Lux to appear, the most naked person with clothes on he had ever seen....