Asian woman, early 40s, with gold rimmed glasses, bangs held back by a black headband, wearing a white collared short sleeve blouse, her hairless forearms ridged with sinewy muscle.

Middlesex, Jeffrey Eugenides (Vintage Canada)

Page 365:

When we came in the kitchen door, we found Jerome. He was sitting at the table, reading the Weekly World News. The pallor of his face suggested that he had been there pretty much all month. His lustreless black hair looked particularly inert. He had on a Frankenstein T-shirt, seersucker shorts, white canvas Top-Siders without socks.

She walks to work from here, past the coffee shop, the shady parkette, the corner store with cheap videos, off the main strip and through tree-lined streets. Casey House looks like any other large home. Sometimes someone is sitting on the front patio, reading or chatting with one of the caregivers. Yesterday, she’d been two steps behind him, slowing so that he didn’t feel rushed. He walked with the aid of a cane, one foot bagged in No Frills. She’d looked around, wondered if he should be out on his own. He was visibly frail, thin and unsteady. He carried what at first appeared to be books. But when she finally committed to passing, came up along side him, she felt an overwhelming surge in her chest and looked down. They were pictures, five of them, framed, the kind you’d put beside your bed. She looked up to meet his eyes, tired. So tired.

Black woman, mid 40s, with half glasses, wearing a sleeveless black and silver speckled blouse and deep red skirt. Her bookmark is a strip of purple ribbon with a broad stripe of gold running up its centre.

The Ravenscar Dynasty, Barbara Taylor Bradford (St. Martins Press)

Edward touched his father’s shoulder and closed his eyes. Good-bye, he thought, good-bye. Then he moved on to look at his dearest brother. But the Edmund he had known and loved was not here either. He touched his shoulder, said good-bye to the boy inside his head, and moved on sadly.

She’d raised a finger — Just one second; I can do this — and continued down the page, listing her grandfather’s accomplishments. It had been a warm day, winter not that far past. Scarves and gloves seemed out of place, and, indeed, many of the women dabbed under the brims of their Sunday best hats. On this Tuesday, a strapping young man mowed the lanes wearing only shorts and a tank top.

Caucasian woman, late 30s, wearing a black-and-white polka dotted blouse. Her hair is red and full and, remarkably, never frizzy, always bouncy like a commercial. She stands on the stage bathed in an overwhelming emptiness, in this case, a red flood light eclipsing her save for the white dots.

All In Together Girls, Kate Sutherland (Thistledown Press)

“My mom can’t believe she shelled out cash for contact lenses and I’ve only worn them once. It was the first day I got them, and it took me hours to get them in, then my mom and dad took me to a movie to try to distract me — the one where Julie Andrews goes topless.”

Beside her, an empty mic. To the other side, an empty music stand. Beyond that, an empty easel. Off stage, an empty piano. Beside that, an empty screen filled with “Clue”. (Someone’s at the door.) The front half of the room is topped up with the velvet red of a Los Angeles Mexican restaurant, the main course indistinguishable from the melted cheese that swallows the plate whole. It’s not a bad thing, how could it be? It’s just full everything, but nothing much. Until she speaks. And her voice, thankfully, fills, spills, the shadowy folds of what is surely a felt background. She emerges.

Caucasian woman, mid 50s, wearing a red-checkered shirt, sun hat and large, round sunglasses.

Airborn, Kenneth Oppel (HarperCollins)

Page 171:

The wind had a voice and it was howling and cursing, and whenever it died down for a moment I would pray that this was finished, that it had spent itself, but then the rain would crash down with renewed hatred, and the wind would shriek again as if all the heavens were its bellows, aimed at our island.

Some days are better than others. Today, for one. Her underwear didn’t pinch at the waist. That flip in her hair cooperated. Coffee didn’t ache her belly. She’d managed, somehow, to get away with a crueller for breakfast. The train had come on time. Space had opened up. She’d settled in the middle, hitting every curve of that track like she was a sixteen year old boy riding the curl of a Maui wave. Then she’d turned the page and the “wind has a voice and it was howling…” That’s all it took. Her mother dead. Her alone. Playing out days in cups of coffee and doughnuts; her book, her best friend.

Caucasian male, mid 30s, wearing black dress pants, blue dress shirt (sleeves rolled to elbows) and scuffed leather shoes. He has a full beard and pulls methodically at his moustache like the hair of a Crissy Doll.

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, Michael Chabon (Picador)

Page 72:

Sammy performed the rapid series of operations–which combined the elements of the folding of wet laundry, the shoveling of damp ashes, and the swallowing of a secret map on the point of capture by emerging troops–that passed, in his mother’s kitchen, for eating.

Her job was to wait below, terry cloth shorts bunched between her chubby legs, while he climbed the television tower. She kept a look out for adults, older siblings, or anyone, really, with sense enough to call his parents. He would be quick. By his rules of the game, only once up and down constituted a closed case. Then they could retreat to the basement, the young boy and his neighbour, lie on the couch together, still, “getting the girl” his reward for another mystery solved.