In this time that’s like nothing we have seen before, it seems helpful to sometimes have small, specific things to concentrate on for a few minutes that have nothing to do with the news. And for those of us who love to read, that just might be a marvelous paragraph or two. A friend of mine once said, “I read for sentences,” which made me think about what I read for: characters, story, the problems we find ourselves in and have to navigate our way through, lives like or completely unlike our own (my friend reads for all of these too – she was making a dramatic point at the time). But I love splendid sentences too, and love them most when they’re in conversation with each other: a dialogue, an argument, a little dance. A paragraph might build up details, make and then undercut points, move deeper and deeper into an idea, or ricochet from one idea to another. This blog explores some favorite paragraphs and authors, looking at what they do and how.

To start off, here’s a paragraph that builds into an explosion, from the chapter “Dream House as Time Travel” in Carmen Maria Machado’s In the Dream House. The book traces the story of an abusive relationship, even as it pokes into all the corners of narrative possibility. With a mix of playful invention and anguish, the short chapters take on traditional and unexpected forms, themes, and literary tropes in this reinvention of the memoir.