The Goddess

Contents

The Girl
Concerning the Case of Bobby T.
Blindfold
The Daughter
In the Warehouse
Ruth
The Maniac
Free
. . . & Answers
I Must Have You
Magna Mater
Explorations
Small Avalanches
The Voyage to Rosewood
Waiting
The Dying Child
Narcotic
A Girl at the Edge of the Ocean
Unpublished Fragments
A Premature Autobiography
Psychiatric Services
The Goddess
Honeybit
Assault
The Wheel

Excerpt

From "Small Avalanches"

I noticed a big rock highter up, and I went around behind it and pushed it loose—it rolled right down toward him and he had to scramble to get out of the way. "Hey! Jesus!" he yelled. The rock came loose with some other things and a mud chunk got him in the leg.

I laughed so hard my stomach started to ache.

He laughed too, but a little different from before.

"This is a little trial for me, isn't it?" he said. "A little preliminary contest. Is that how the game goes? Is that your game, Nancy?"

I ran highter up the hill, off to the side where it was steeper. Little rocks and things came loose and rolled back down. My breath was coming so fast it made me wonder if something was wrong. Down behind me the man was following, stooped over, looking at me, and his hand moving up and down because he was breathing so hard. I could even see his tongue moving around the edge of his dried-out lips. . . . I started to get afraid, and then the tingling came back into me, beginning in my tongue and going out through my whole body, and I couldn't help giggling.

He said something like, "—won't be laughing—" but I couldn't hear the rest of it. My hair was all wet in back where it would be a job for me to unsnarl it with the hairbrush. The man came closer, stumbling, and just for a joke I kicked out at him, to scare him—and he jerked backward and tried to grab onto a branch of a bush, but it slipped through his fingers and he lost his balance and fell. He grunted. He fell so hard that he just lay there for a minute. I wanted to say I was sorry, or ask him if he was all right, but I just stood there grinning.

He got up again; the fleshy part of his hand was bleeding, But he didn't seem to notice it and I turned and ran up the rest of the hill, going almost straight up the last part, my legs were so strong and felt so good. Right at the top I paused, just balanced there, and a gust of wind would have pushed me over—but I was all right. I laughed aloud, my legs felt so springy and strong.

Reviews

• Kirkus Reviews, October 1, 1974, p1076
• Publishers Weekly October 7, 1974, p54
• National Observer, November 16, 1974, p27
• New York Times Book Review, November 24, 1974, p7, 10
• Best Sellers, February 1, 1975, p483
• Library Journal, February 1, 1975, p311
• Psychology Today, March 1975, p96
• Booklist, March 15, 1975, p725
• New Republic, March 29, 1975, p30-31
• Times Literary Supplement, April 4, 1975, p353
• Observer, April 6,1975, p30
• Commonweal, April 11, 1975, p55, 57-58.
• New Statesman, April 11, 1975, p488
• Guardian Weekly, April 12, 1975, p21
• Listener, May 22, 1975, p685-686
• Books and Bookmen, January 1976, p56-57
  

Epigraph

Things naturall to the Species
are not always so for the individuall.
—John Donne

Awards

New York Times Notable Books of the Year

Other Editions