This is Heather C.

Vollmann, William T.

I keep coming back to William Vollmann. Right now I’m reading Riding Toward Everywhere. I bought the book, despite tepid reviews, when I caught Vollmann doing a reading for it this past February. (The trek through a blizzard was totally worth it when he signed and illustrated two books for me, then carried the conversation — and the crowd — to a bar down the street.)

It’s a book of stories about catching freight trains. I read it everyday on the train. Trapped underground on the subway, claustrophobic, headed to work, reading about hours spent waiting for freights and lazy days riding through the Plains — am I some kind of masochist?

Now I’ve got another train in my life — a bottle of Night Train Express. That’s as close as I’ll get to freedom tonight.