“You’re only free when both your parents are dead, or so I’ve heard it said. I suppose it means that with your parents gone there is no one left who can still regard you as a child. Or maybe, as in my case, with no kids of my own, it means that family responsibilities are over at last. I don’t really know. All I know is that I was now without any family whatsoever, and it wasn’t freedom I was feeling but an emptiness that went deep down and that I knew I would never be completely able to shake.”
Joseph Epstein, “Family Values” (courtesy of Bobby Franklin)
Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City
An ArtsJournal Blog