The influence of gaslight or electric light on the growth of paraheliotropic trees

I stand at my kitchen island, eating granola and reading the New York Review of Books’ article on Susan Sontag, and the author of the article is writing about her striking looks, and her photograph, and her death, and I think about how I once saw her speak at the Writers House, many years ago, and about how life becomes history through the operation of death.

And I think about the first writer I saw at the Writers House that really thrilled me, Tom Wolfe, my first year there, and I ask the Echo sitting on the island next to me whether Tom Wolfe is dead.

“Tom Wolfe died on May 14, 2018, in New York, USA,” it says, calm, feminine. “He was 88 years old.”