The title story to Last Evenings on Earth is one of the most memorable in the collection. A nameless protagonist, only identified as ‘B’, is going on a vacation with his father to Acapulco. B is engrossed in an anthology of French surrealist poetry while his father does his best to ‘live it up’ a bit, in the ways you would expect from a former boxer in Acapulco. While the whole story keeps you glued to the page, the section below is nothing less than pure poetry, seemingly effortless, magical poetry:

Do you know Longfellow? Asks the woman. B shakes his head, although in fact he has read some Longfellow. We learned it at school, says the woman, with her invariable smile. And then she adds: It’s too hot, don’t you think? It is very hot, whispers, B. There could be a storm coming, says the woman. There is something very definite about her tone. At this point B looks up: he can’t see a single star. But he can see lights in the hotel. And, at the window of his room, a silhouette watching them, which makes him start, as if struck by the first, sudden drops of a tropical downpour.

For a second, he is bewildered.

It’s his father, on the other side of the glass, wrapped in a blue bathrobe that he must have brought with him (B hasn’t seen it before and it certainly doesn’t belong to the hotel), staring at them, although when B notices him, his father steps back, recoiling as if bitten by a snake, lifts his hand in a shy wave, and disappears behind the curtains.

The song of Hiawatha, says the woman. B looks at her. The Song of Hiawatha, the poem by Longfellow. Ah, yes, says B.