There's a lot to love about the Wilsey story. (Yes, this has something to do with The New Yorker.) If you're just joining us, this Voice piece by Chris Tamarri might be a good place to start:

After four years away, Sean Wilsey returned from Italy and ate lunch with his father. He had spent that time in a sort of emotional deprogramming center called Amity, the latest in a series of last resorts his parents hoped would dissuade him from a life of drug use and disillusionment. Oh the Glory of It All is, among other things, a travelogue of wasted youth and attempts at reclamation. First was prep school at St. Mark's, where academics were a footnote to drinking, and the exploded bag of discarded beer cans on the seniors-only quad was an "allegorical tableau." Inevitable expulsion led to another school, Woodhall, and a collection of castaways indifferent to the school's philosophy of "mak[ing] up educational lacunae." Amity is the one that sticks, though; Wilsey claims to "have never experienced emotions so powerfully, mysteriously, unwillingly, and eventually, gratefully."

They ate Italian, naturally, father and son, and Al Wilsey delighted in making his son speak to the waiter... You've got to finish this.

I'm out of town, emdashers (think Dickinson, Post, Bronte, Carr, Pankhurst, H. W. Fowler, and a haberdashers' convention in a very unconventional arrangement), so if you want me, look under your bootsoles or, more hygienically, through the archives. If I have time, I'll blog somewhere waiting for you.

Family Guise: Emotional rescue—The adventures of a not-so-fortunate son [VV]
From "Song of Myself" [Favorite Poem Project]