Memorable passages:
"I wish I could make out Stone's students better. I can see how they disturb him. But I just can't see them in any detail. They're hiding in the sullen, shine performance of youth." The narrator's attempt to describe the youth in the protagonist's creative writing class (page 7).
"From where I sit, the whole human race did something stupid when young-- pulled some playful stunt that damaged someone. The secret of survival is forgetting. If evolution favored conscience, everything with a backbone would have hanged itself from the ceiling fan eons ago, and invertebrates would once again be running the place." (page 19)
"As they talked, the counselor's words turned playful, to match the immigrant's. Something contagious about the Algerian. Her delight was irresistible: like being seven, and ten hours from turning eight. Like being eighteen, out on the highway when a tune with a hook like resurrection came on the radio for the first time. Like being twenty-nine, and having the doctor tell you that company is coming." On delight, (page 86). I like this for two reasons 1) My best friend often has a similar effect on people, one of the many reasons why I love her and 2) great use of simile here, each evocation of delight he employs would resonate strongly with almost anyone.
I'm sure there are many more in this book but I stopped noting the interesting passages pretty early on because I began doubting the author's perspective pretty early on. Towards the end of the book I came to believe in him again but by then it was too late to go back and re-mark things that might have been interesting to my re-engaged self.
Page numbers from the first hardcover edition, published in 2009 by Farrar, Straus, and Giroux.
Link to Generosity's Powell's page: http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/biblio?inkey=1-9780374161149-0
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