ATDTDA (7): 191-192

[Paul Nightingale]

A brief section in which Mayva returns home to find
Lake, not so much not-there as having-been-there.
Fast-forward to her conversation with Webb; and then
fast-forward again to a conversation with Lake about
Webb, "remembered later" (192). By this time something
has happened to Webb, who like Lake can be remembered
as having-been-there. Again one thinks of the
Reverend's advice: "the whole fuckin poker hand" means
he no longer has the facade of normality. Missing from
the previous section is the reference here to "war up
here", the "National Guard ... shooting off their
cannon to keep the natives in place". This presence is
an intrusion, heard from a distance: it separates, in
the same paragraph, the before-and-after of the
passage, Mayva discussing Lake with Webb, then
discussing Webb with Lake.