And this is exactly what happens in One Story’s current issue, “The Signature of All Things” by Elizabeth Gilbert. When fact and fiction (science & literature) mix, our imagination can blossom in surprising ways. I go there for inspiration, but also to teach creative writing-my students happily scribbling in front of a diorama of mountain gorillas, or underneath a skeleton of a Tyrannosaurus Rex. Hannah Tinti on “The Signature of All Things”įor the past year, I’ve been spending a lot of time at the American Museum of Natural History. Her novel The Signature of All Things will be published by Viking in October, 2013. Elizabeth GilbertĮlizabeth Gilbert is the author of the bestselling memoir Eat, Pray, Love-as well as four other books of fiction and non-fiction that led far quieter lives. She wanted to understand the world, and she made a habit of chasing down information to its last hiding place, as though the fate of nations were at stake in every instance. If her millstone of a mother had not steadfastly ground the impudence out of her, she might have turned out to be frankly rude.

From the moment the girl learned to speak, she could not put an argument to rest. A right little dromedary, she was-tireless and uncomplaining. “No question who spawned that one!” he would boast. Not that Henry himself objected to this state of affairs Henry Whittaker enjoyed looking at his image wherever he might encounter it (in a mirror, in a portrait, in a child’s face), so he always took satisfaction in Alma’s appearance. Henry’s face was far better suited to a grown man than to a little girl. This was a rather unfortunate circumstance for Alma, although it would take her some years to realize it. For one thing, Alma Whittaker looked precisely like Henry: ginger of hair, florid of skin, small of mouth, wide of brow, abundant of nose.

Books like the signature of all things