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Quote by Ніно Харатішвілі

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The Eighth Life

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Ніно Харатішвілі

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“The town of London, Georgia, was on a grid, with the old-fashioned town square in the center. Smack in the middle of the square, the courthouse rose above the other buildings. Constructed of red brick, with white ionic columns lining the front, the courthouse sported a clock tower with a copper dome that had developed a green patina after years of oxidation. The residents jokingly called it the “The Tower of London” for the historic castle in London, England. But while the English tower housed the Crown Jewels, the Georgian tower graced the building where citizens of London paid their parking tickets. The only Beefeaters at this Tower of London were the retirees who ate steak and eggs and played checkers at the diner nearby. Established by a few founding families who had sailed over from its namesake city a couple hundred years ago seeking religious freedom, London leaned into its Anglophile origin. On the corner of the town square sat the Olde Towne Shoppe— and that was “Shoppe” with an E at the end— which sold everything from “Werewolf of London” tees to English breakfast teas. Rumors abounded about the religion the founding families had needed freedom to practice, and people whispered that the families hadn’t just brought old-world culture and Christianity but also old-world demons. The blood-sucking, fangy ones. Londoners didn’t put any stock in the vampire tales, but they provided great fodder for tourism, much like trolls in Norway and Mothman in Point Pleasant, West Virginia. The Shoppe took tourists on walking tours called “Legends of London: A Bite on the Town,” sharing stories of the macabre and selling fruit punch in pouches designed to look like blood bags from the Red Cross. Yet there were other stories that floated down from generation to generation— ones that weren’t touted on the tours, about mysterious deaths and other odd happenings in their town. Londoners whispered of people disappearing overnight and secret rooms behind bookshelves where the undead hid their victims. When Mina’s third-grade teacher had passed away suddenly halfway through the year, kids swore weeks later that they’d seen her lurking around the playground at night. Mina knew this was all just folklore but still loved to hear the stories. Maybe because she considered herself a mystery of London.”

LondonMonstersGeorgiaCrypticOld CultureMina MurrayCourthouseDark MysteryLocal Folklore
Book:Girl of Lore
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“Florida was his destination. He didn't care about Miami, Disneyworld, the Keys. He was feeling primordial, reptilian in his rage. He was a wild car thief. He belonged in a swamp. He aimed himself at the Okefenokee like a pistol. Pogo territory. Spiders as big as your hand, cottonmouths, malaria. Crazy dark continent dreams, a vanishing act.”

DangerDramaFloridaGeorgiaSwampsOkefenokee
Book:Six Kinds of Sky: A Collection of Short Fiction
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“WHEREVER WE HAD BEEN in Russia, in Moscow, in the Ukraine, in Stalingrad, the magical name of Georgia came up constantly. People who had never been there, and who possibly never could go there, spoke of Georgia with a kind of longing and a great admiration. They spoke of Georgians as supermen, as great drinkers, great dancers, great musicians, great workers and lovers. And they spoke of the country in the Caucasus and around the Black Sea as a kind of second heaven. Indeed, we began to believe that most Russians hope that if they live very good and virtuous lives, they will go not to heaven, but to Georgia, when they die. It is a country favored in climate, very rich in soil, and it has its own little ocean. Great service to the state is rewarded by a trip to Georgia. It is a place of recuperation for people who have been long ill. And even during the war it was a favored place, for the Germans never got there, neither with planes nor with troops. It is one of the places that was not hurt at all.”

GeorgiaTbilisi
Book:A Russian Journal
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“In these terrific Georgians we had met more than our match. They could out-eat us, out-drink us, out-dance us, out-sing us. They had the fierce gaiety of the Italians, and the physical energy of the Burgundians. Everything they did was done with flair. They were quite different from the Russians we had met, and it is easy to see why they are so admired by the citizens of the other Soviet republics. Their energy not only survives but fattens on a tropical climate. And nothing can break their individuality or their spirit. That has been tried for many centuries by invaders, by czarist armies, by despots, by the little local nobility. Everything has struck at their spirit and nothing has succeeded in making a dent in it.”

Georgia
Book:A Russian Journal
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