top of page

"Last"/"Cathedral"

“Last” in the Ali Smith collection Public Library.


The title story in Raymond Carver’s Cathedral.


In both stories, an able-bodied narrator has a potentially transformative encounter with a disabled person.


In Public Library, see also “The Beholder,” in which extremely puzzled diagnosticians are ignored: “Then the voice began saying something serious-sounding about something. But I wasn’t listening,” (51).

Recent Posts

See All

Albie Sachs’ Soft Vengeance of Freedom Fighter is not the kind of book I usually pick up; autobiography is way down my list. But I had grabbed a copy of Soft Vengeance in a used bookshop for thirty ra

Sherri Benning’s Field Requiem: this book sent me to the dictionary (well, the internet search) again and again. While there’s nothing unusual about my having to look up words, what I found interestin

bottom of page