conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me a description for a book titled Heart with Joy about Award, Portisville, Book with the genre: Literature & Fiction, Genre Fiction.. Start with the sentence 'the author's debut novel, Portisville , was the winner of the 2004 Novello Literary Award'.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: the author's debut novel, Portisville , was the winner of the 2004 Novello Literary Award. Portisville went on to be named a finalist for both the Independent Publisher Book Award in general fiction and Foreword magazine's Book of the Year Award in literary fiction. His Fracture City was published in 2008. the author is an x-ray technologist and lives in Greensboro, North Carolina, NC.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me the first five paragraphs for this book.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Heart with Joy
  The year I turned fifteen two things happened that took me by surprise: my mother moved out and my father decided to run a marathon. My mother left first. On February 8th, I came home from school and found Mom packing two suitcases: one with clothes, the other with her old typewriter and drafts of the novel she'd been working on for years. She told me she was going to Venice, Florida to help run her parents' motel and to try and finish her novel.
  Of course, I wanted to go with her, but she said she wouldn't be gone too long, that she was only staying down there until her father hired a manager. Mom told me I should finish the school year here in North Carolina and if she was still living in Florida at the beginning of summer I could come spend time with her there. Part of me wanted to believe she moved down there because of the reasons she had said. But the other part of me, the part I tried not to listen to, knew this was a separation of sorts between my Mom and Dad. While I had never seen them fighting or yelling at each other, which is how I thought unhappily married people acted I rarely saw them do much together in the year or two before she left.
  Dad worked fifty to sixty hours a week as a nurse so Mom could stay home and take care of me and work on her writing. I spent most of my time with her, cooking or walking or talking. She liked to talk about her novel and I liked to listen to her, particularly after she'd been drinking and the words seemed to slide out of her mouth, her soft southern accent rising to the surface.
  Six weeks after Mom left, at the beginning of April, my father came home from work one night, and without a word to me, changed out of his light blue nurse's scrubs into sweat pants and a long sleeved T-shirt. He stretched for five minutes on the porch steps, then ran out of our front yard.
  It occurred to me as I lost sight of him, that he might not come back at all. And I thought if he didn't come back Mom would be forced to either return home or let me live with her in Florida. Either way, we would be together again. But that first night, he made it home in about thirty minutes. He stood out on the porch, hands on hips, covered in sweat, breathing like a man taking his last few breaths. When he came inside, Dad poured himself a tall glass of water and drank it in one mouthful. "I needed that," he said. I wasn't sure if he meant the exercise or the water.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me five more paragraphs.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Gray pulled another cigarette from the side pocket of his coat and lit it. I felt myself leaning forward, closer to this man, some living connection to Mrs. Peters. The smell of cigarettes hung in the air, and while I had long decided I would never smoke, the smell reminded me of my mother.
  Gray finished his cigarette and dropped it in the ashtray. "That was my sister and that's how I remember her, not like she is in that box." Gray squeezed my shoulder once, then disappeared inside the building.
  I leaned against the railing, dizzy from what he'd told me. While I had only spent a month or so with her, it seemed exactly the kind of thing she'd do.
  Car lights were starting to come on in the parking lot. The front door of the building was opening and closing and the slightest hints of soft music were seeping outside. If I was going to say goodbye to Mrs. Peters I figured I'd better get in there and do it soon.
  When I went back in, the viewing room was empty. It was just me and Mrs. Peters. I walked up to the coffin. They'd dressed her in a light green dress, nothing too fancy. Her hands, those long white fingers, were folded across her waist and the blue veins on her face were covered with makeup. Her white hair was combed straight down along the sides of her face and the ends of it rested on her shoulders and chest.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Reverse the sentences.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Her white hair was combed straight down along the sides of her face and the ends of it rested on her shoulders and chest.. Her hands, those long white fingers, were folded across her waist and the blue veins on her face were covered with makeup. They'd dressed her in a light green dress, nothing too fancy. I walked up to the coffin. Peters. It was just me and Mrs.
  When I went back in, the viewing room was empty. Peters I figured I'd better get in there and do it soon. If I was going to say goodbye to Mrs. The front door of the building was opening and closing and the slightest hints of soft music were seeping outside.
  Car lights were starting to come on in the parking lot. While I had only spent a month or so with her, it seemed exactly the kind of thing she'd do.
  I leaned against the railing, dizzy from what he'd told me." Gray squeezed my shoulder once, then disappeared inside the building. "That was my sister and that's how I remember her, not like she is in that box.
  Gray finished his cigarette and dropped it in the ashtray. The smell of cigarettes hung in the air, and while I had long decided I would never smoke, the smell reminded me of my mother. Peters. I felt myself leaning forward, closer to this man, some living connection to Mrs.Gray pulled another cigarette from the side pocket of his coat and lit it
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me the last four paragraphs.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: I heard the chitter-chatter above me and the word chickadee formed in my head. Tia was leaning into my shoulder. There was flour on her naked knees. I wanted to brush it away, but didn't want to wake her. She was breathing easy, exhausted, napping as she tended to do at this time of the day. I looked up at the elm tree above us and spotted the tiny black, white and gray bird.
  I crumbled what was left of my cookie and set it on the porch rail. A few seconds later, the bird flew down and took the cookie, disappearing into the tree again. I did this two more times, setting the food closer to Tia and me. And each time the bird gladly took what I offered.
  I set the last bit of cookie in the palm of my hand. The bird flew down and landed on the porch rail, looked left and right. I considered waking Tia, saying hey check this out, but she was sleeping and comfortable.
  And like magic, it flew over and landed in the palm of my hand, settled there for no more than a second, plucked the bit of cookie I offered and flew away. Tia moved slightly; she moaned easily; but she didn't wake. I knew that I would have to leave soon if I wanted to have dinner ready by the time my father made it home. But I had a few more minutes, so I closed my eyes, leaned into Tia, and listened to the birdsong. It was beautiful. They were everywhere.