Maybe it’s surrender to Mary I want, I said. A feminine divine.

Could two people stay in love, when one had injured the other in such a permanent and visible way?

“What a time to be there, amid the influx of Westerners shopping in the dollars-only markets.”

  The spring my first book came out—a collection of stories, several of which detailed an erotic but unconsummated emotional affair—I was invited to speak at an all-men’s book club. I was excited such a club existed in my town. I told th…