Ave Marias

Perhaps that is where the seeds were first sown of Faulkner's evident aversion to and scorn for letters. When he died, piles of letters, packages and manuscripts sent by admirers were found, none of which he had opened. In fact, the only letters he did open were those from publishers, and then only very cautiously: he would make a tiny slit in the envelope and then shake it to see if a cheque appeared. If it didn't, then the letter would simply join all those other things that can wait forever.

He always had a keen interest in cheques, but one should not deduce from this that he was a greedy man or, indeed, mean. He was, in fact, something of a spendthrift. He got through any money he earned quickly, then lived on credit for a while until the next cheque arrived. He would then pay his debts and start spending again, mostly on horses, cigarettes, and whisky. He did not have many clothes, but those he had were expensive. When he was nineteen, his affected way of dressing earned him the nickname "The Count." If the fashion was for tight trousers, then his would be the tightest in the whole of Oxford.

When I played parades we'd be going down Canal Street and at each intersection people would hear just the fragment I happened to be playing and it would fade as I went further down Canal. They would not be there to hear the end of the phrases, Robichaux's arches. I wanted them to be able to come in where they pleased and leave when they pleased and somehow hear the germs of the start and all the possible endings at whatever point in the music that had reached them. Like your radio without the beginnings or endings. The right ending is an open door you can't see too far out of.

"Blond to the bone," says Ellis. "I'd eat her whole damn child just to taste the thing he squeezed out of."

"World War Two. The Deuce."