The Last Paragraph of Marguerite Young's Miss MacIntosh, My Darling

The Last Paragraph of Marguerite Young's Miss MacIntosh, My Darling


She would hang a sign in the restaurant window---Owt to luntsch. Bee bak in a whale. For she could not spell either.

The Last Line of Dodie Bellamy's Pink Steam

The Last Line of Dodie Bellamy's Pink Steam



Boy was I in for a big surprise....

The Last Lines of Janet Flanner's The Cubical City

The Last Lines of Janet Flanner's The Cubical City


Slowly Delia closed her eyes, her head sightless, erect, and yellow, holding its distance from the shadows that spread around her in her chair.

The Last Paragraph of Iris Murdoch's A Severed Head

The Last Paragraph of Iris Murdoch's A Severed Head


I gave her back the bright light of the smile, now softening at last out of irony. "So must you, my dear!"

The Last Paragraph of David Shield's How Literature Saved My Life

The Last Paragraph of David Shield's How Literature Saved My Life

I wanted Literature to assuage human loneliness, but nothing can assuage human loneliness. Literature doesn't lie about this---which is what makes it essential.