Ferris is on her cell phone, connecting with her friends, or whatever she calls it that she does when she makes plans to get shithoused again, to lose her ID at some nondescript bar, to go home with some total beast of a drunk, to delay reality for one more day.

Like Cinderella, the girl in rags was swept off her feet by a handsome Prince Charming.

[…] as if I give a shit whether she lives or dies, as if she's more than another minor character to delineate in my novel: the young white niggerfucker.

Located outside the mouth of the Min River 閩江 off the coast of China, the Matsu Islands form the northern anchor of the ROC's offshore defense chain. Nankan 南竿, the main island of the group, is more commonly known as Matsu 馬祖, which is also the name of the island's largest port.