Where Keith goes...

...KEITH WALDROP’S HAUNTED REALISM

In one of the last scenes in which the family is all together, Waldrop’s mother is, as ever, threatening damnation. Her attention is focussed on Julian: “You’d better be thinking about how you’re going to spend eternity. Take that old cigar out of your mouth.” It is at this point that Julian makes a statement that has become a kind of refrain for Waldrop’s many admirers, now several generations of writers and readers. “I don’t want to go to heaven,” Julian responds to his mother’s threat: “I want to go where Keith goes.”