Quotes from Michael Martone

In the stories we tell ourselves, we tell ourselves.

Every word Martone sets down, finally, a choice that limits the universe, their trail across the page a fossil record of some life's life-story.

When someone you have loved dies, you accept the fact of his or her death, but then the person goes on living in your memory, dreams, and reveries. You have imaginary conversations with him or her, you see something striking and remind yourself to tell your loved one about it and then get brought up short by the knowledge of the fact of his or her death, and at night, in your sleep, the dead person visits you.

The reader is to be pulled in by the preponderance of the evidence that he or she has been sifting through. As you read, the details fall like snow that suddenly is ash. The character is clearly visible once he is coated, like a status in the town square after such a storm, with a film of detail.