This love of theirs, with its reassuring domesticity and its easy silences, its permanence, has yoked Sally directly to the machinery of mortality itself. Now there is a loss beyond imagining.

Early life and education
Cunningham was born in Cincinnati Ohio and grew up in Pasadena California. He studied English literature at Stanford University where he earned his degree. His short story "White Angel" was later used as a chapter in his novel A Home at the End of the World.

Cunningham is currently a professor of creative writing at Yale University. Michael Cunningham (born November 6 1952) is an American writer.