Vinnie sighs. It is clear to her that unless she takes definite action this Western businessman or rancher or whatever he is will prevent her reading The Singapore Gripand make the rest of the flight very boring.

“No, it’s never awfully comfortable,” she says. “Really I think the best thing to do is bring along something interesting to read, so one doesn’t notice.”

“Yeh. I shoulda thought of that, I guess.” He gives Vinnie a sad, baffled look, arousing the irritation she feels at her more helpless students-students on athletic scholarship, often, who should never have come to Corinth in the first place.

“I have some other books with me, if you’d like to look at them.” Vinnie reaches down and pulls from her tote bag The Oxford Book of Light Verse;a pocket guide to British flowers; and Little Lord Fauntleroy, which she has to reread for a scholarly article. She places the volumes on the middle seat, aware as she does so of their individual and collective inappropriateness.

“Hey. Thanks,” her seatmate exclaims as each one appears. “Wal, if you’re sure you don’t need them now.”

Vinnie assures him that she does not. She is already reading a book, she points out, suppressing a sigh of impatience. Then, with a sigh of relief, she returns to The Singapore Grip.For a few moments she is aware of the flipping of pages on her right, but soon she is absorbed.

While the shadows of war darken over Singapore in Jim Farrell’s last completed novel, the atmosphere outside the cabin windows brightens. The damp grayness becomes suffused with gold; the plane, breaking through the cloudbank, levels off in sunlight over an expanse of whipped cream. Vinnie looks at her watch; they are halfway to London. Not only has the light altered, she senses a change in the sound of the engines: a shift to a lower, steadier hum as the plane passes midpoint on its homeward journey. Within too she feels a more harmonic vibration, a brightening of anticipation.