I am so focused on the collapsed life, the obituary, because this is where the fable behind the life or under the life emerges and becomes recognizable. These lives were, perhaps still are, more than the echo of folklore and fairy tales we hear in retrospect. They are made of other stories like all of us are made of many stories. We can no more understand these lives by knowing the fable they lived than we can understand a novel just by knowing its genre. I gather stories from their lives even when I know a story does not speak to the fabled life I am trying to uncover. How could I not?
-Amatus
fabled obituaries 