The West began at the pay phone at the gas station at Lee Vining, the little town next to Mono Lake on the east side of the Sierra Nevada, too remote for cell phones. I was standing around in the harsh golden light at eight thousand feet waiting to make a call when I realised that the man on the line was trying to patch up his marriage, and the task wasn't going to be quick or easy. 'You just aren't going to let us get back together, are you?' he said in a tone at once supplicating and truculent. I thought that maybe she had her reasons and wondered how far away she was on the other end of the line.

LRB 9 October 2003 | PDF Download