“He guessed he’d known he’d get a call like this one day, and he guessed he’d have to think about it for a while, because the initial impact felt mild, even irritating. He’d have to stick his head into the dirty, hot, self-satisfied state of California and try not to drown in its smugness while he solved the problem of his father’s body, which he hadn’t particularly cared for when his father was alive. But what was most on his mind was this question of kin, and why they had not made another call first.”
—Ben Marcus