Once upon a Time in the Schlinks

Gone are the days of the simple, weather-beaten solitary son-of-a-whore riding on a brown-dappled mangy horse towards a fiery red sunset.  Or the tense showdown between two dirty and unkempt gunslingers, with the brutal sun beating on itchy fingers, gleaming Colts and extreme close-ups.  The prosperous brothels full of ugly men and beautiful women, cuspidors,

I Ain’t Afraid of No Black Bird, Part V: The Chase (continued)

Continued from the previous installment, Part V: The Chase (in which our heroine visits the Strange Physician) – “It’s him!” Dr. Millie Fethermann beamed like a child and pointed to the closed window. – “You only need to see him! Then you’ll understand!” Even to the Strange Physician, she must have, at that very moment,

I Ain’t Afraid of No Black Bird, Part IX: An Immodest Proposal

In which our heroine receives an uninvited advance… The Hartsbinder Estate seemed even bleaker today. Daily custom had once been enough to varnish Millie’s longing with a surface of boredom and modest expectation. But there were also a few quiet sighs, breathed as one went about one’s day, which had, like a magic counter-cure, sufficed