Verbatim

Slam The Big Door
by John D. MacDonald

I picked up a couple of books from the Detective Book Club at Post-Hip recently, and they have provided some enjoyable reading. They appear to be about 20 years old, and being book club books, the pages are turning yellow and feel fragile, but they aren't falling apart yet.

I am reading one story, Slam The Big Door by John D. McDonald, and I come across this line:

"He had always been able to remember dialogue, the special way people fit words together, so that in repetition it has the distinctive flavor of truth."

I have never been able to do that, or I have never been interested in trying to remember what people say. I attempt to extract the significance of what they are saying, and I can remember that, but the actual words vanish instantly.

This is a problem for me sometimes when I am trying to explain something to my wife. My explanation for some reason will be unsatisfactory, and she will ask me to tell her "what they said", which throws me for a total loop because I have no idea what was actually said.

P.S. John D. MacDonald was born two years before my dad, and died shortly after him.