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“Excuse me,” Alton said in a peremptory tone.

It wasn’t only that this writing seemed beautiful to Madeleine. It wasn’t only that these opening sentences of Barthes’ made immediate sense. It wasn’t only the relief at recognizing that here, finally, was a book she might write her final paper on. What made Madeleine sit up in bed was something c…

In Week Four, Zipperstein assigned Umberto Eco’s The Role of the Reader. It hadn’t done much for Madeleine. She wasn’t all that interested, as a reader, in the reader. She was still partial to that increasingly eclipsed entity: the writer. Madeleine had a feeling that most semiotic theorists had …

“Man, am I ever lucky,” Dabney said. “What would I do if you weren’t around? You have to catch all the subtleties for me, don’t you? You and your flair for catching subtleties. It must be nice to be rich and sit around all day catching subtleties. What do you know about needing to make a living? It…

When Dabney returned from his review with Churchill, he looked even more self-contented than usual.

“So?” Madeleine asked. “How did it go?”

“He says I’m perfect for soaps.”

“Soap commercials?”

Dabney looked peeved. “Days of Our Lives. General Hospital. Ever heard of those?”

“Did he m…