After Cassie's abuse of Australia, one can only say:

- lightweight authors are exportable

- having read some of her work the Americans deserve her

- the American fiction market pays more, must be "where your heart is...."

- one more b(w)itch for Salem...

I hope this sour woman is as happy in the US as we are happy to see her go.

Interestingly, it appears the first two posters are 'projecting' inadequacies on to the author and her writing - lightweight, and a sour-puss? Oh please.

Cassandra, I think the article was beautifully written.

Yes, qanda - a beautifully written and wistful piece. Imagine Leigh calling someone else "sour". Has he ever looked in a mirror?

Thank you Cassandra, I enjoyed the essay.

Maybe it didn't have enough madeleines for plantagenet's refined palate.

But that's Ok.

Boston is still very cool, I hope you enjoy it as much as you anticipate.

(Did I say cool? Do you really know what winter is like there...?)

Look, my concern is Cassie's ceptophilia at the expense of my/our country.

Ceptophilia (love of America and ..cans) by the way, has just been invented by moi (and not Pericles) as it stems from Yank, thus Tank, thus ceptic, with "philia" being added just then, by me. You read it here first on OLO. But I digress.

Cassie can indeed write pretty prose and that does beguile some posters on this thread but she has also decided to gratuitously put down the country (Australia) that brought her up.

She needs to recognise that her openness of thought may actually spring from the Australian milieu, that is a land of sceptics, not a country of patriots right or wrong full of "Truth, Justice and the American Way" - something that hurts so many people outside America's shores.

Having passed through Salem, it is pretty, has charm and is also a tourist trap for the witch obsessed. Only the rich can afford to move and live there. With high costs of living (e.g. for heating) current house prices that Cassie refers to are just one component.

So fiction-philiacs just because some, like Cassie, can afford to move from Australia doesn't justify Cassie's "eFF You" attitude to the lives and values of Australians less lucky.

Pete