On my trip to Seattle, I re-read A Home at the End of the World by Michael Cunningham, which is one of my favorite books.  I just finished reading the Golden Compass trilogy (after years of good intentions; highly recommended!) and wanted more fiction despite (in spite of?) my pile of books to read on post-colonial queer theory.  I also partly wanted to read it again because Alex and I always argue about the book — he thinks it suggests that alternative families can’t exist, but I disagree.  I also wanted to read it because it’s one of Logan’s favorite books, and I was sad I wasn’t going to see her in Seattle.

In any case, I mentally marked two passages this time reading it that I especially loved and thought I might like to share here:

Here was another lesson in my continuing eduation: like other illegal practices, love between boys was best treated as commonplace.  Courtesy demanded that one’s fumbling, awkward performance be no occasion for remark, as if in fact one had acted with the calm expertise of a born criminal.  (53)

and

I didn’t care about unpacking, but it would have been a logical next step.  At that moment I felt I understood about the past.  In another century a guest unpacked, and rested, and dressed for dinner, so that everybody had a good long period alone with himself.  In the modern age, we have to negotiate vaster expanses of uninterrupted time. (134)

There are several other passages that are worth noting but which I didn’t do a good job of marking, and those are for some reason the two I’m most left with.  Interesting that they’re both about custom, courtesy, and relationships.  I’m not sure what that’s reflecting.

Anyway, if you haven’t read it, I highly recommend it.