and tr)ing what Beckett and Babelrnand Kafka have done as only theyrncan do . . . just get down clear thernslant of light on a woman who influencedrnme more than any ofrnthose writers.rnThe result was his first New Yorker story,rnthe first of the stream of stories that ledrnineluctably to his novels.rnTo those who have read Woiwode’srnhaunting masterpiece, Beyond the BedroomrnWall (and to have read the firstrnpages is to have surrendered to the entirety).rnWhat I Think I Did allows a glimpserninto what that effort meant. To call thernbook an account of what it means for arnchild to lose his mother is to trivialize it.rnTo call it anything else is to trivializernwhat it means for a child to lose his mother.rnLike the east and west watersheds ofrnthe Continental Divide, for Woiwodernthere is a Before and an After. Bv returningrnto North Dakota, he has, in a way, returnedrnto his mother and to the roots andrnthe community her distant memory embodiedrnfor him:rnWhen my mother died the years inrnNorth Dakota tumbled into [a]rntrunk, because we had moved tornIllinois the summer before, and herrndeath was like a guillotine acrossrnthem. They went falling in foldsrninto their place in the trunk and itsrnlid slammed shut. Her grave was arnchasm, the spot where the guillotinernstruck, and when I tried to getrnto the other side by every imaginativernleap I could devise, it didn’trnmatter if I missed by a mile or anrninch, a miss sent me into a darkrndarker than dreams.rnFor those who have made the journeyrnwith Woiwode through his novels. WhatrnI Think I Did will deepen their appreciationrnof his accomplishment in traversingrnOxymoronrnfor Henry Vaughnrnby Constance Rowell MastoresrnI would like to believe in the everynessrnof things. In the universe and fiery stars.rnIn the warp-worlds. In the greater possibilityrnof that impossibility. In the huge seductivenessrnburning outside my window. Every nightrnit winks at me. Every night, at odds, I stare at itrnand write strange sentences on yellow tabletsrnthat create their own kind of haphazard universernupon the table. I read them like a Rorschach test.rnI see windmills. I tilt at them. I tilt at the universernburning outside my window, dare it to make mernbelieve, to walk right up to me and announcernitself—shake me by the shoulder. There isrnin God, some say, a deep, but dazzling darkness.rnthe ridges and sloughs of deep memory tornwrite books like Beyond the BedroomrnWall. Woiwode might say he could dornno other—but that’s not quite true, andrnwe know it.rnEdward B. Anderson writes fromrnEdmond, Oklahoma.rnOn Her Wayrnby ]ane GreerrnPursuit and Persuasionrnby Sally S. WrightrnSisters, Oregon: Multnomah Publishers;rn3S4 pp., $10.99rnThis is the third and newest book inrnSally Wright’s well-received “BenrnReese Mystery Series.” The first two —rnPride and Predator and Publish andrnPerish —drew rave reviews from thernWashington Times, National Review,rnPublishers Weekly, and the redoubtablernRalph Mclnerny.rnThe new book’s premise is intriguing.rnIt’s 1961. Elderly Scottish professorrnGeorgina Fletcher leaves an Oxford pubrnwith a tall, argumentative American. Hernputs something into her purse andrnstomps off. She reads it, goes back to herrnroom, and writes a letter that she asks arnfriend to mail secretly should she,rnGeorgina, die. The letter requests a privaterninvestigation into her death. Thernnext day, Georgina dies at breakfast.rnThe letter is addressed to a youngrnAmerican, Ellen Winter, who takes it seriously.rnEllen has the double good luckrnof being Georgina’s heir and an apprenticernto Dr. Ben Reese, the quiet, handsome,rnmanly (I’m thinking Rod Taylor inrnHotel), widowed archivist at AldertonrnUniversity in Ohio. Reese, an amateurrndetective, just happens to be in Scotland.rnEllen contacts him, and the two set aboutrnfulfilling Georgina’s request.rnWright is thorough in her research andrnclearly familiar with Scotland. (The secondrnbook in this series is set there, too.)rnAs Ben and Ellen engineer conversationsrnwith a large group of suspects, we learn arngreat deal about Scottish landscape, history,rnfood, and culture, as well as thernScottish impression of Americans inrn1961. Descriptions of Georgina’s cen-rn30/CHRONlCLESrnrnrn