" Maybe we’re just sad, she said, as though she is deeply sad. Always women. Drowned women make a paper river on my desk. No mention of a single son. Lovers, bereaved husbands, aggrieved fathers abound, but a son? A brother? No, only me. I am an anomaly. While she continually shuffles cards and defaces my already damaged book. How did it become so ruined? The "

― Erika Swyler , The Book of Speculation