Common Read: The Tiger's Wife

Inclined serifs


I have read this book three times
and enjoyed it three times. Many of the passages
are astonishingly beautiful, much of the storytelling
is artfully woven, and all of it
that should be unbelievable
is, somehow, made real.

I have told dozens of readers
that the young author’s gift is a rarity.
Indeed, it is. But I see in the colophon

that I might need to credit
(like the mysteries in my own world)
some unseen source - in this case
the choice of typeface: Berling,
whose “inclined serif
make it highly legible.” A joy to read.

So I flip back through the pages
and the serifs are, indeed, invitingly sloped
on the crests of the l’s and r’s,
the j’s and b’s, and all those dear nothings
that bear the world to me

amazingly, nearly invisibly
like love - that reality
that leads and follows me
as words do.


October 28, 2014