Brandon+Book+2

__Book 2__ __ Setting __
 * My second book is "//Double Helix//" By, Nancy Werlin.
 * ===== "The chair I sat in was small and hard and low to the ground. Obviously, whoever designed the corporate reception area had been focused not on the comfort of visitors, but on showcasing the enormous double-helix staircase. And though anyone would find the chairs uncomfortable, they were particularly bad for me. My knees stuck up akwardly, making the pant legs of my borrowed suit look even shorter than they were. There was nothing I could do about that -- my father was only six foot three. His jacket, also, was too tight across the shoulders on me." (Pages 1 - 2) =====

__Plot__
This Letter is to confirm in writting our telephone conversation of last Tuesday. As per Dr. Quincy Wyatt's request and refferal, we have test you blood sample and can confirm that you sre negative for Huntington's disease. Congradulations. However, we are aware that learning the results of one's HD test can be difficult even when the news is good, as in this case. The burden of years of anxiety is not so easily lifted, and for many HD- Negatives, there are complex additional family health concerns. Therefore, I am enclosing information about counseling and support groups. I urge you to investigate these. If you have any further questions or need assistance in any way, please call. Sincerely, Harriet Emerson, MSW Genetics Counselor" (Page 24) You'd have thought I'd be relieved -- there was now no possibility of having to introduce my father and Viv. But I wasn't relieved. I felt weirdly chilled." (Page 40) It's clear to me now that somehow you've gotten to know Quincy Wyatt, and that your new job is with Wyatt Transgenics. I don't want to know the details of how that happened. I don't care. I simly ask you not take that job. In fact, I ask you not ot let this man in your life in any way. I can't tell you why, Eli. But I am begging you to do what I ask, and to do it immediately and without question. Love, Dad." (Back cover)
 * ===== "It was almost impossible for me to sit still -- but i had to. I couldn't be pacing frantically back and forth across the rich grey carpet of Wyatt Transgenics's expansive reception area when Dr. Wyatt -- //the// Dr. Wyatt." (Page 1) =====
 * ===== "Bottom line: I had no idea why I was here. Why I'd been... summoned. The woman who called me had simply said: //We got you email. DR. Wyatt has read it. He would like to meet you."// (Page 3) =====
 * ===== "Viv's voice again. //He's a legend, Eli! I mean, from seventh-grade biology class -- Gregor Mendel, Watson and Crick, Quincy Wyatt. Wehad to learn all that stuff, remember?"// (Page 4) =====
 * //"Dr. Wyatt, about the email. Let me just say that I've been under some stress. Family stuff. My mom is// -- I searched for a good, neutral word -- //sick nowadays, but when i was a kid, she mentioned you... and i got drunk one night -- just that once, my father and I had just had a fight about something -- plus I'd found this stupid letter that made me angry at him, and the letter mentioned you... and I've always been interseted in biology... and I'm putting off college... and anyway, I wrote that email asking for a job. It was an impulse and a bad one. I'd like to apologize. I know it was out of line."// (Page 8)
 * "This was what i wanted. But still, my mputh dropped open with shock. And I thought, maybe, maybe it I worked here, if I talked to Dr. Wyatt from time to time, I could find some way to ask -- to find out--" (Page 12)
 * "Then: "I knew your mother," said Dr.Wyatt. "Years ago." And now he was, indeed, looking at me straight on. "I knew bot your parents but, especially your mother. Ava Samuels. Nice woman. I knew she'd had a son named Eli, so I knew who you must be immediatly, when I got your message. So of course I'd like to do you parents' son a favor." (Page 13)
 * " "Hi," Called. From the living room, my father gave a kind of grunt. Then, as if he had remmebered that since the fight, we were being excruciatingly careful around each other -- though we both knew the politeness was just the thin crust on a sleeping volcano -- he called back: "Hello, Eli." " (Page 22)
 * " Dear Mr Jonathan Samuels:
 * "We both know you mother wouldn't want -- " he began. And just like that, between one moment and the next, I lost control comletly. "For all practical purposes, my mother is insane!" I yelled. "And who knows, maybe I -- " "Don't sat it!" My father was yelling too, all at once. "Stop saying that! You're fine!" (Page 28)
 * "This is what I saw when I finnished my soeech and looked out at the audience: my father, leaving. He stood up and edged his way out of his row. Then -- walking so rapidly up the aisle that it was short of a run -- he left. My father walked out, while Dr. Wyatt stayed, clapping mildly and politely with everyone else.
 * "Eli,

__Characterization__ Now this was a conversation I had practicaly every day, and was quite comfortable with. 'I'm six foot seven." 'And you're only what -- eighteen?'  'Yes.'  'What does your doctor say about your final height?'  I shrugged as if i didn't know. But the truth was that I didn't like to say becasue people make to much of it. And maybe because my motherused to do imitations of Dr. Kaplan for her friends. //Get ready, Mr. and Mrs. Samuels, he's headed for seven feet. But with al ittle luck there'll be college basketball scholarships, which will more than comensate for the clothing and shoe bills." (Page 10)// __ Figurative Language __
 * "He looked exacty like he did in the photographs. That big head with the tight, grizzled, reddish-white hair. The round black-rimmed glasses. The steel cane clenched in his left hand." (Page 4)
 * "He leaned forward. 'I'm wondering, Eli: Hot tall are you exactly?'
 * "I stared at him. His linen suit. His big head. his eyes, mere pinpricks behind the black-framed glasses." (Page 13)
 * "Judith Ryan had drwan her body up fully in her seat, like a hooded cobra preparing to strike." (Page 20)
 * "His straight gray hair straggled nearly to the colar of his shirt. In a few days, I estimated, he'd go around the corner to the barber and emerge with a buzz cut that would do credit to an army sergeant. Then he'd ignore the matter for another year." (Page 22)
 * "I followed him in the same way that, as a child, I'd toddled confidently after my mother." (Page 6)
 * "//If you attend to the details, the details will attend to you."// (Page 20)