Gertrude Stein is best known for the quote, "A rose is a rose is a rose is a rose." She was an early 20th century writer whose work mirrored the experimentalism of the Cubist art movement. "A Long Gay Book" (the novella that opens this volume -- a novella so substantial that it could well fill a volume by itself) is written in the stream-of-consciousness style that Stein helped to make famous. The tale begins by focusing on the idea of children being born with a clean slate, but it evolves into something else entirely. . . .