"And then a voice she recognized, knew so intimately it was as if she were speaking herself: 'Come on, Norm, come on, man, don't let us down.' It was Ronnie, across the room, his face pinched and his eyes swollen in his head. He looked terrible. Looked as if he'd been buried a week and dug up again. But that voice, that tone--there was something raw and desperate in it, a quaver she recognized from all those late-night disquisitions on God, the futility of life an how impossible it was to find a good FM station in the flatlands, and she understood in that moment how much all this meant to him. Ronnie. Pan. He needed Drop City as much as she did. 'Come on, Norm,' he nagged. 'Come on.'"

Drop City, T. C. Boyle