NPR.org, May 13, 2014, Listen on All Things Considered
In “Notes During Long Phone Conversation With Mother,” a woman listening to her mother express a desire for a cotton summer dress doodles variations of “cotton”: “nottoc,” “coontt,” “toonct,” “tocton,” almost palpably driving her pen into the pad. What is happening here? The word “cotton” disintegrates into fibers, perhaps the daughter’s patience fraying along with it as her elderly mother drones on. The story ends on that allusive “contot” — with its shades of cannot and the book’s title. Davis dances right up to and around that final mystery that can’t, won’t and must be borne, that most inexplicable magic trick, life’s vanishing act.
Parul Sehgal 