On Reading Elizabeth McCracken's The Giant's House 3-17-2013 (Part Two)

 [I am back working through my prison journal. It is out of order… Well, the order is as I have opened boxes. The date in the title is the date it was written. I hope this is not confusing. What you are reading is what you get for your tax dollars. The original is 4 handwritten pages, so it seems best to split the original in two parts. Continued from On Reading Elizabeth McCracken's The Giant's House 3-17-2013 (Part  One). sch 8/16/2025] 

Graham Parker sang once about passion not being just another word. Elizabeth McCracken does a grand job of conveying her narrator's passion, when the giant dies:

So I walked to the bed. Beneath that sheet, he was still in his street clothes, the shirt and pants he'd fallen in. He's dead, I thought, that's a simple fact. It wasn't him anymore. Anything I decided to believe, science or religion, told m that whatever was essential to his existence was gone now - soul or cold mechanical bloodworks. The sheet lay flat along the length of him, not moving at his mouth, nor at the rib cage over his lungs, nor at his hands or knees. It was still. Whatever was essential, the minister would say later, and I wanted to answer, but his soul forgot something, his soul didn't pack for that long trip. I thought I was thinking of myself. The two things my self, his body, were not distinct entities. This is how I'd always allowed myself to love him: I hired on as caretaker of his body, because his self, his soul if that's what you wanted to call it had no reason to need me. I needed to be essential, too, but I was still here, I hadn't gone, I was standing by the bed, my hand still out to the sheet. He had done an awful lot in the past twenty-four hours without my permission.

"Whatever Was Essential", The Giant’s House

Whoever has lost a loved one should recognize the emotions described above. But I think the last sentence with its slight change of tone balancing on the word "awful" nails the narrator.

What became of Elizabeth McCracken in the past 17 years.

sch 

[8/16/2025: About what Ms. McCracken has been doing since writing this novel and since I wrote the above: Books - Elizabeth McCracken. sch.]