The American Child: A Novel of Memory, Loss, and Perception

One day several years ago, when Mr. Lowes Dickinson's statement that he had found no conversation and-worse still-no conversationalists in America was fresh in our outraged minds, I happened to meet an English woman who had spent approximately the same amount of time in our country as had Mr. Lowes Dickinson. "What has been your experience?" I anxiously asked her. "Is it true that we only 'talk'? Can it really be that we never 'converse'?"