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ABOUT "FUNERALS FOR HORSES" What if you were to descend into madness again? In this gritty, compelling tale of a woman's search for her lost childhood, Ella Ginsberg slips into and out of insanity, and manages to cling by a thread to the flattened earth of her existence. When her brother disappears, leaving behind his family, his money, and even the clothes he was wearing, Ella abandons a dying group of friends and lovers and undertakes a personal mission to bring him back and, with him, her tenuous grip on reality. An excerpt from "Funerals for Horses" Andy was a small horse, six or seven inches long, stiff legs inside his blue and green cover, to stand up by himself. He had a wind-up key in his belly, which my sister now cranked obsessively, causing him to roll his head around on a geared neck and play Brahms' Lullaby. Thinking I was being kind, I told DeeDee that when she grew up, she might be able to own a real horse. She flew out from under the table at me, like ghosts from a Halloween house, threw me and pinned me and seized my throat in her adrenaline-powered grasp. "Don't ever say Andy isn't a real horse. Ever. Promise?" I would have, if I could, if she had let go of my throat, or if Uncle Manny hadn't broken up the moment by pulling her off to the other side of the room. He sat with DeeDee on his lap, one huge arm across her waist, restraining her as she wailed and thrashed. He must have thought she was on her way back to attack me, but I knew better. I retrieved Andy from under the coffee table, and carried him, as reverently as I knew she would, back to his rightful owner. She sat still then. It was the best apology I could make, because words would not have come close. DeeDee didn't speak to me for a week. But she didn't speak to anyone else either, so I didn't take it too hard. Besides, she broke her vow of silence in my presence, in our room just before sleep. "If anything happens to me," she said in a strained whisper, "I want you and Simon to give Andy a proper burial. With a funeral service. And everything." |
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