BOMB Magazine — Great Expectations by Kathy Acker
I Recall My Childhood | Kathy Acker
My father’s name being
Pirrip, and my Christian name Philip, my infant tongue could make of
both names nothing longer or more explicit that Pip. So I called myself
Pip, and came to be called Pip.I give Pirrip as my father’s
family name on the authority of his tombstone and my sister—Mrs. Joe
Gargery, who married the blacksmith.On Christmas Eve 1978 my
mother committed suicide and in September of 1979 my grandmother (on my
mother’s side) died. Ten days ago, it is now almost Christmas 1979,
Terence told my fortune with the Tarot cards. This was not so much a
fortune—whatever that means—but a fairly, it seems to me, precise
psychic map of the present, therefore: the future.