"In a deep forest, there is something called the "understory," that realm low down where light is thin, and small creatures struggle to survive. The lordly trees rise high above; the understory is what will come next, when they have fallen. And this is the power of the essay "In the Fade": the story under the story is what the writer does not tell, what the reader cannot hear or see, but must live by. A missing name, a forgotten conversation, an elusive explanation-- these make the source of great power in this writer's hands. Reticence is eloquent. Encountering this essay is your life, where indelible clues abound, but no one is going to explain to you in simple terms what they might mean. The writer gives lush description and arresting context oblique from literal understanding, and then trusts the reader to shiver with recognition and wonder at the unspeakable."