The Pennsylvanian period took place during the Paleozoic era, some 200 million years ago. At this time the earth was dominated by species of early reptiles. They were a pre-cursor to the dinosaurs, and enjoyed eating cheesesteak as well as visiting Hershey's park. They lived in small communities with strange names such as Breakneck, Hop Bottom, and Punxsutawney. They were a valiant, good-hearted, and rowdy bunch who excelled at baseball. They are now extinct.

The best type of writer is a dead writer. Everybody loves dead writers. Especially the ones that kill themselves. Second to dead writers are working writers (published or not). Writers with their mouths closed and their noses against the page. There is some intrigue, some mystery, but mostly, people like working writers because they don’t say much. I come to you now as one among them working writers and I do feel very blessed to be here. Below working writers are yet-to-be-published writers. Working or not, yet-to-be-published writers live under a constant fear of joining a certain subset of yet-to-be-published writers: writers who will never be published. Poor bastards. Yet-to-be-published writers are usually humble, kind, and willing to learn (this done in the hopes that they can one day get published and become obnoxious, uncaring, and stubborn). The problem with yet-to-be-published writers is their self hatred, which for most, is strong enough to smell down the street. People say getting published isn’t everything, and it isn’t, but to a yet-to-be-published writer it’s the only thing they care about. The only route they can see towards happiness and self respect. Poor bastards. God bless ‘em. The worst type of writer is a “resting” writer. “Resting” writers include writers smothered by academia, retired writers (whatever that means), writers on vacation, writers who are “taking a break”, or–of course–those sorry, constipated, idealess losers currently extricated from the muse (aka those experiencing “writer's block”). Poor bastards. God bless ‘em.

Say you’re walking in the woods and across the way you see a stranger and between you and the stranger passes a deer, and as it passes, the deer sprouts wings and then proceeds to fly away into the clouds. What would you say? Nothing of note. You could smile across the way at the stranger, shake your head in disbelief. But really, you can’t talk to the stranger. You don’t know them, and they're so far away, and to be honest, they don’t understand what’s just happened either. You could tell someone else about the experience, but who would believe you? And even if they do believe you, they still will never be able to understand what it felt like to see a deer sprout wings and fly away into the sky. That feeling is reserved for you and the stranger.

In other words: I’ve just made it all the way to another back cover and this one has really destroyed me. There is nothing worth saying about J.D. Salinger’s Raise High the Roof Beam & Seymour an Introduction. There is nothing worth saying. But I’ll try. 

Stories shouldn’t make sense until they end, and by then, they should be the only thing that makes sense. 

There; that’s all you get.