“Later Achilles would play the lyre, as Chiron and I listened. My mother’s lyre. He had brought it with him.
‘I wish I had known,’ I said, the first day when he showed it to me.
“The American Dream, that has lured tens of millions of all nations to our shores in the past century has not been a dream of material plenty, though that has doubtlessly counted heavily.”
“Each memory was brought to life before me and within me. I could not avoid them. Neither could I rationalize, explain away. I could only re-experience with total cognizance, unprotected by pretense.”
“You want to be fooled. But you wouldn’t clap yet. Because making something disappear isn’t enough; you have to bring it back. That’s why every magic trick has a third act, the hardest part, the part we call “The Prestige”.”
At home, Gemma has to deal with her sister Debbie’s engagement, the soon-to-be in-law family, the war-obsessed Websters and all the other insanities an upcoming wedding brings with it.
“When the children have been good,
That is, be it understood,
Good at meal-times, good at play,
Good all night and good all day, -
They shall have the pretty things
Merry Christmas always brings.”