the last book I ever read (The Street by Ann Petry, excerpt eleven)

from The Street by Ann Petry:

She boarded a Sixth Avenue train at Forty-Second Street. It was crowded with passengers. She closed her eyes to shut them out, gripping the overhead strap tightly. She welcomed the roar of the train as it sped toward Fifty-Ninth Street, welcomed its lurching, swaying motion. She wished that it would go faster, make more noise, rock more wildly, because the tumultuous anger in her could only be quelled by violence.

She sought release from the urgency of her rage by deliberately picturing the train plunging suddenly off the track in a fury of sound—the metal coaches rushing headlong on top of each other in a whole series of thunderous explosions.