American Pastoral

I'm almost done with this book by Philip Roth, and I just read the most beautiful part. I want to share it.

He brought a chair around, sat himself down between his wife and his mother, and, even as Dawn spoke, took her hand in his. There are a hundred different ways to hold someone's hand. There are the ways you hold a child's hand, the ways you hold a friend's hand, the ways you hold an elderly parent's hand, the ways you hold the hands of the departing and of the dying and of the dead. He held Dawn's hand the way a man holds the hand of a woman he adores, with all that excitement passing into his grip, as though pressure on the palm of the hand effects a transference of souls, as though the interlinking of fingers symbolizes every intimacy. He held Dawn's hand as though he possessed no information about the condition of his life.