Monday, August 30, 2010
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Work in Progress: Shake Up Your Brain
I’m trying some new things writing-wise these days, and it’s interesting how just a few steps out of the usual routine can seem so exhilarating and lead to an excellent creative pay-off. Here’s what’s been working for me:
--New location. I’ve been walking to some area coffee shops (yay, exercise!) to work.
--New time. I’m doing this during the morning, though my usual writing time is in the afternoon.
--New medium. At the coffee shop, I’m writing with a pen (remember those?) on paper (remember that?).
--New form. I’m writing non-fiction instead of fiction.
--New looseness. I’m just letting things spill out without thinking too hard and I try not to go back to revise or even to read the previous day’s work. For now, it’s just-move-forward…write like a shark!
I don’t know what will come of all this—in a way, there’s a fine line between this writing and writing in a private journal—but I’m trying not to worry about that (see “new looseness”)—and so far, so good. Can writing actually be fun?
--New location. I’ve been walking to some area coffee shops (yay, exercise!) to work.
--New time. I’m doing this during the morning, though my usual writing time is in the afternoon.
--New medium. At the coffee shop, I’m writing with a pen (remember those?) on paper (remember that?).
--New form. I’m writing non-fiction instead of fiction.
--New looseness. I’m just letting things spill out without thinking too hard and I try not to go back to revise or even to read the previous day’s work. For now, it’s just-move-forward…write like a shark!
I don’t know what will come of all this—in a way, there’s a fine line between this writing and writing in a private journal—but I’m trying not to worry about that (see “new looseness”)—and so far, so good. Can writing actually be fun?
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Link Corral: Southern Lit, Spartanburg Bookstore, and Write a Novel in 3 Days
The Crab Orchard Review is reading for a special theme issue, Old & New, Re-Visions of The American South:
Crab Orchard Review is seeking work for our Summer/Fall 2011 issue focusing on writing exploring the people, places, history, and new directions that have shaped and are reshaping the American South.
All submissions should be original, unpublished poetry, fiction, or literary nonfiction in English or unpublished translations in English (we do run bilingual, facing-page translations whenever possible). Please query before submitting any interview.
The submission period for this issue is August 10 through November 1, 2010. We will be reading submissions throughout this period and hope to complete the editorial work on the issue by the end of March 2011. Writers whose work is selected will receive $25 (US) per magazine page ($50 minimum for poetry; $100 minimum for prose) and two copies of the issue. Mail submissions to:
CRAB ORCHARD REVIEW
American South issue
Faner 2380, Mail Code 4503
Southern Illinois University Carbondale
1000 Faner Drive
Carbondale, IL 62901
Get the rest of the details here.
***
Do you already have plans for the Labor Day weekend? If not, how about writing a novel for the 3-Day Novel Contest?
From the website:
Can you produce a masterwork of fiction in three short days? The 3-Day Novel Contest is your chance to find out. For more than 30 years, hundreds of writers step up to the challenge each Labour Day weekend, fuelled by nothing but adrenaline and the desire for spontaneous literary nirvana. It’s a thrill, a grind, a 72-hour kick in the pants and an awesome creative experience. How many crazed plotlines, coffee-stained pages, pangs of doubt and moments of genius will next year’s contest bring forth? And what will you think up under pressure?
Prizes
1st Prize: Publication*
2nd Prize: $500
3rd Prize: $100
*The first prize winner will be offered a publishing contract by 3-Day Books after the winner announcement in the January following the contest. Once the contract is signed, the winning novel will be edited, published and released by the next year’s contest. 3-Day Books are distributed by Arsenal Pulp Press.
Read more here. (Thanks for the link, Anna!)
***
Spartanburg, SC—home of the Converse College Low-Residency MFA program—boasts a wonderful new independent bookstore downtown. If you’re in the area, please stop by Hub City Bookshop…perhaps on your way to the Beacon Drive-In for your Chili Cheese A-Plenty. (Thanks for the link, Philip!)
From the website:
The Hub City Bookshop in Spartanburg, SC, is a revolutionary independent bookstore. With each book purchased at our store, we and our customers nourish new writers and help launch authors into the literary world. That’s because all proceeds from the sale of books fund creative writing education and independent book publishing in our home community.
Located in the heart of downtown’s Grain District, our store shares the ground floor of the landmark Masonic Temple with Little River Coffee Bar and Cakehead Bakeshop. From its windows you look out on historic Morgan Square, the city clock tower, and the statue of the victorious Revolutionary War General Daniel Morgan. Operated by the non-profit Hub City Writers Project, the Hub City Bookshop specializes in new releases, regional authors, children’s books, literary fiction, history, and of course, Hub City Press titles.
Read more here.
Crab Orchard Review is seeking work for our Summer/Fall 2011 issue focusing on writing exploring the people, places, history, and new directions that have shaped and are reshaping the American South.
All submissions should be original, unpublished poetry, fiction, or literary nonfiction in English or unpublished translations in English (we do run bilingual, facing-page translations whenever possible). Please query before submitting any interview.
The submission period for this issue is August 10 through November 1, 2010. We will be reading submissions throughout this period and hope to complete the editorial work on the issue by the end of March 2011. Writers whose work is selected will receive $25 (US) per magazine page ($50 minimum for poetry; $100 minimum for prose) and two copies of the issue. Mail submissions to:
CRAB ORCHARD REVIEW
American South issue
Faner 2380, Mail Code 4503
Southern Illinois University Carbondale
1000 Faner Drive
Carbondale, IL 62901
Get the rest of the details here.
***
Do you already have plans for the Labor Day weekend? If not, how about writing a novel for the 3-Day Novel Contest?
From the website:
Can you produce a masterwork of fiction in three short days? The 3-Day Novel Contest is your chance to find out. For more than 30 years, hundreds of writers step up to the challenge each Labour Day weekend, fuelled by nothing but adrenaline and the desire for spontaneous literary nirvana. It’s a thrill, a grind, a 72-hour kick in the pants and an awesome creative experience. How many crazed plotlines, coffee-stained pages, pangs of doubt and moments of genius will next year’s contest bring forth? And what will you think up under pressure?
Prizes
1st Prize: Publication*
2nd Prize: $500
3rd Prize: $100
*The first prize winner will be offered a publishing contract by 3-Day Books after the winner announcement in the January following the contest. Once the contract is signed, the winning novel will be edited, published and released by the next year’s contest. 3-Day Books are distributed by Arsenal Pulp Press.
Read more here. (Thanks for the link, Anna!)
***
Spartanburg, SC—home of the Converse College Low-Residency MFA program—boasts a wonderful new independent bookstore downtown. If you’re in the area, please stop by Hub City Bookshop…perhaps on your way to the Beacon Drive-In for your Chili Cheese A-Plenty. (Thanks for the link, Philip!)
From the website:
The Hub City Bookshop in Spartanburg, SC, is a revolutionary independent bookstore. With each book purchased at our store, we and our customers nourish new writers and help launch authors into the literary world. That’s because all proceeds from the sale of books fund creative writing education and independent book publishing in our home community.
Located in the heart of downtown’s Grain District, our store shares the ground floor of the landmark Masonic Temple with Little River Coffee Bar and Cakehead Bakeshop. From its windows you look out on historic Morgan Square, the city clock tower, and the statue of the victorious Revolutionary War General Daniel Morgan. Operated by the non-profit Hub City Writers Project, the Hub City Bookshop specializes in new releases, regional authors, children’s books, literary fiction, history, and of course, Hub City Press titles.
Read more here.
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
The Story of Buying a Book: Laura Lippman, I'd Know You Anywhere
Last week on Monday, I read this Washington Post review by Patrick Anderson who reviewed Laura Lippman’s new book, I’d Know You Anywhere:
“We meet Eliza Benedict when she is 38 and living with her family a few blocks off Wisconsin Avenue in Bethesda. It's a good life. Her husband is smart, loving and successful. Eliza likes being a stay-at-home mom for Isobel (called Iso), who's 13, precocious and difficult, and Albie, who's 8 and a sweetheart. But Eliza has a terrible secret in her past, and one day, when she and the kids return home after soccer practice, she finds an unexpected, unwelcome letter awaiting her.
“The letter is from Walter Bowman, who kidnapped Eliza (Elizabeth, she was then) when she was 15, kept her prisoner for nearly six weeks and raped her. He had killed other girls but spared Eliza. After two decades of appeals and retrials, Walter is on death row in Virginia and within weeks of execution. He wants to see Eliza. To apologize, he says.
…
“I've read hundreds of thrillers in the past 10 years, and some have been excellent, but only a handful -- thanks to their insights, their characterizations and the quality of their writing -- could equal the best of today's literary fiction. Those few certainly include "What the Dead Know" [Lippman’s previous book] and "I'd Know You Anywhere." In both cases, Lippman began with a real crime and then used the magic of her imagination to produce novels that are not only hypnotic reading but serious meditations on the sorrows and dangers of this world. Some people would segregate Lippman as a crime or thriller writer. That's a shame. She's one of the best novelists around, period.”
That was Monday. On Thursday, I bought the book at independent bookstore Politics & Prose, and last night I stayed up late to finish reading it. It was excellent, a compelling read, beautifully written, and it subtly wormed its way into my head such that I didn’t sleep well (that’s actually a good thing!).
Consequently, I would like to make a few points:
1. Book reviews still work. I had heard of Laura Lippman, mostly as the Baltimore mystery writer married to one of my creative idols, David Simon, who was responsible for one of my favorite TV shows, “The Wire.” But this review—and only this review—got me into the bookstore.
2. Regular book reviewers are still effective. Patrick Anderson used to write a weekly review of thrillers/suspense books for the Washington Post, and because he was a good, honest critic, I generally read his reviews, even though I don’t typically buy in this genre. I don’t think he writes regularly now for the Post, but in this occasion I noticed his name and read the review because I knew he was a good reviewer. As a reader, I had a relationship with him: as I do with the Post’s other regular book critics, Ron Charles, Carolyn See, Michael Dirda, and Jonathan Yardley. I may prefer some of those critics to others, but they are all a trusted, familiar voice coming from a point of view that I understand. Yes, blogs can achieve this aura of a trusted voice…but bloggers may also be simply trying to push books written by their friends, or—the horror!—written by themselves
3. Blurbs can work (alas). How it pains me to mention this. But in the review, this writer was compared in quality and career path to Dennis Lehane who wrote Mystic River, another suspense book that I thought was fantastic. Of course, this was an honest comparison by a neutral observer, not praise in the “she’s the greatest writer of her generation” from the “former writing teacher/famous classmate/writer owing agent a favor” Blurb-O-Matic machinery.
4. I know one can easily do this online, but at the bookstore, finally, it was holding the book and getting to skim around the pages to get a sense of the writing that was the final step. I like the book design, I liked the print size, I liked the length of the book (370 pages). So, you can get me into the store and get the book into my hands (or cyber-hands), but it will always be the writing that will be the final step.
So, in conclusion:
Laura Lippman, if you happen to read this, I’m sorry to say so, but I think this book cover is extremely unattractive (here it is, though it’s worse in the flesh because it’s garishly shiny). I never, NEVER would have picked up this book, though I think the title is nice and the title font seems vaguely “literary” to me. Plus, it’s a hardcover…that’s real money.
But I bought this book specifically and solely as a result of reading that review.
I hope someone in New York who can send some ad dollars to the old school media that cover books is paying attention. I hope that someone in New York knows that yes, people do still read reviews and are interested in what an “expert” might say—and that there are readers left in the world who can still feel such a rush of excitement that they have to go to a bookstore and plunk down cash simply so they can find out what happens next.
Buy the book at your favorite bookstore or here.
You can read more about Laura Lippman here, including her very cool contest to get her to read/speak at your library, at her expense.
“We meet Eliza Benedict when she is 38 and living with her family a few blocks off Wisconsin Avenue in Bethesda. It's a good life. Her husband is smart, loving and successful. Eliza likes being a stay-at-home mom for Isobel (called Iso), who's 13, precocious and difficult, and Albie, who's 8 and a sweetheart. But Eliza has a terrible secret in her past, and one day, when she and the kids return home after soccer practice, she finds an unexpected, unwelcome letter awaiting her.
“The letter is from Walter Bowman, who kidnapped Eliza (Elizabeth, she was then) when she was 15, kept her prisoner for nearly six weeks and raped her. He had killed other girls but spared Eliza. After two decades of appeals and retrials, Walter is on death row in Virginia and within weeks of execution. He wants to see Eliza. To apologize, he says.
…
“I've read hundreds of thrillers in the past 10 years, and some have been excellent, but only a handful -- thanks to their insights, their characterizations and the quality of their writing -- could equal the best of today's literary fiction. Those few certainly include "What the Dead Know" [Lippman’s previous book] and "I'd Know You Anywhere." In both cases, Lippman began with a real crime and then used the magic of her imagination to produce novels that are not only hypnotic reading but serious meditations on the sorrows and dangers of this world. Some people would segregate Lippman as a crime or thriller writer. That's a shame. She's one of the best novelists around, period.”
That was Monday. On Thursday, I bought the book at independent bookstore Politics & Prose, and last night I stayed up late to finish reading it. It was excellent, a compelling read, beautifully written, and it subtly wormed its way into my head such that I didn’t sleep well (that’s actually a good thing!).
Consequently, I would like to make a few points:
1. Book reviews still work. I had heard of Laura Lippman, mostly as the Baltimore mystery writer married to one of my creative idols, David Simon, who was responsible for one of my favorite TV shows, “The Wire.” But this review—and only this review—got me into the bookstore.
2. Regular book reviewers are still effective. Patrick Anderson used to write a weekly review of thrillers/suspense books for the Washington Post, and because he was a good, honest critic, I generally read his reviews, even though I don’t typically buy in this genre. I don’t think he writes regularly now for the Post, but in this occasion I noticed his name and read the review because I knew he was a good reviewer. As a reader, I had a relationship with him: as I do with the Post’s other regular book critics, Ron Charles, Carolyn See, Michael Dirda, and Jonathan Yardley. I may prefer some of those critics to others, but they are all a trusted, familiar voice coming from a point of view that I understand. Yes, blogs can achieve this aura of a trusted voice…but bloggers may also be simply trying to push books written by their friends, or—the horror!—written by themselves
3. Blurbs can work (alas). How it pains me to mention this. But in the review, this writer was compared in quality and career path to Dennis Lehane who wrote Mystic River, another suspense book that I thought was fantastic. Of course, this was an honest comparison by a neutral observer, not praise in the “she’s the greatest writer of her generation” from the “former writing teacher/famous classmate/writer owing agent a favor” Blurb-O-Matic machinery.
4. I know one can easily do this online, but at the bookstore, finally, it was holding the book and getting to skim around the pages to get a sense of the writing that was the final step. I like the book design, I liked the print size, I liked the length of the book (370 pages). So, you can get me into the store and get the book into my hands (or cyber-hands), but it will always be the writing that will be the final step.
So, in conclusion:
Laura Lippman, if you happen to read this, I’m sorry to say so, but I think this book cover is extremely unattractive (here it is, though it’s worse in the flesh because it’s garishly shiny). I never, NEVER would have picked up this book, though I think the title is nice and the title font seems vaguely “literary” to me. Plus, it’s a hardcover…that’s real money.
But I bought this book specifically and solely as a result of reading that review.
I hope someone in New York who can send some ad dollars to the old school media that cover books is paying attention. I hope that someone in New York knows that yes, people do still read reviews and are interested in what an “expert” might say—and that there are readers left in the world who can still feel such a rush of excitement that they have to go to a bookstore and plunk down cash simply so they can find out what happens next.
Buy the book at your favorite bookstore or here.
You can read more about Laura Lippman here, including her very cool contest to get her to read/speak at your library, at her expense.
Monday, August 23, 2010
Funny Ladies
Check out the weekly humor blogs on the Bethesda [Maryland] Magazine written by two of my friends. They’re very funny even if you don’t live in the area…and if you do live here, I promise you’ll laugh out loud:
In the Semi-Charmed Life, Paula Whyman examines the wonders of suburbia:
http://bethesdamagazine.com/blog4/
In every home search there comes a moment like this one: You will be standing in the formal living room of a sparkling white house, surrounded by white furniture and white painted walls, with white plush carpet underfoot, and you will say to yourself, “I think there is mud on my Tevas.”
In Alternate Sides, Susan Coll tackles parking (yes, parking is very, very funny):
http://bethesdamagazine.com/blog5/
Even if our cooking skills are negligible and we don’t know the difference between a beefsteak and an heirloom tomato, for reasons best explained by sociologists, we nonetheless gravitate to overpriced gourmet food outlets where we’re unable to procure half of the items that we need. Hence it was with great enthusiasm that we set out to explore the new Whole Foods at Friendship Heights, and in particular, to assess the parking lot.
Special bonus:
Paula also runs a parody newspaper called the Bethesda World News, News from the Center of the Universe, which can be found here: http://www.bethesdaworldnews.com/
In the Semi-Charmed Life, Paula Whyman examines the wonders of suburbia:
http://bethesdamagazine.com/blog4/
In every home search there comes a moment like this one: You will be standing in the formal living room of a sparkling white house, surrounded by white furniture and white painted walls, with white plush carpet underfoot, and you will say to yourself, “I think there is mud on my Tevas.”
In Alternate Sides, Susan Coll tackles parking (yes, parking is very, very funny):
http://bethesdamagazine.com/blog5/
Even if our cooking skills are negligible and we don’t know the difference between a beefsteak and an heirloom tomato, for reasons best explained by sociologists, we nonetheless gravitate to overpriced gourmet food outlets where we’re unable to procure half of the items that we need. Hence it was with great enthusiasm that we set out to explore the new Whole Foods at Friendship Heights, and in particular, to assess the parking lot.
Special bonus:
Paula also runs a parody newspaper called the Bethesda World News, News from the Center of the Universe, which can be found here: http://www.bethesdaworldnews.com/
Contest for DC-Area Youth & Adults
Community Prize for Writing on a Festival Theme: Strangers in a Strange Land: The Lives of Jewish Immigrants
Sponsored by Washington DCJCC
We surround ourselves with communities that sustain and enrich our lives. When we leave those communities—by choice, by force, or both—our lives are upended. What do we choose to take with us to the new environment, and what do we leave behind? This year’s Opening Night explores these questions of immigration and home.
Jews have often found themselves strangers in strange lands, but new environments are not always the result of physical displacement. Tell us a true story—from your life or a family member’s—of finding oneself alone in a new place or situation.
Submissions are open to all and will be judged blindly. Work will be considered in two categories:
1) 18 years and under, and
2) over 18.
Please include your contact information and age category on the first page only. Send submissions of 500 words or fewer to litfest@washingtondcjcc.org by September 27, 2010.
A selection committee will choose three entries in each category to honor during the Festival and online. These winning entries will be published on the 16th Street J’s website and The Blog at 16th & Q. The first place selection in each category will win the Community Prize for Writing and a $100 Visa gift card.
More info: washingtondcjcc.org
Sponsored by Washington DCJCC
We surround ourselves with communities that sustain and enrich our lives. When we leave those communities—by choice, by force, or both—our lives are upended. What do we choose to take with us to the new environment, and what do we leave behind? This year’s Opening Night explores these questions of immigration and home.
Jews have often found themselves strangers in strange lands, but new environments are not always the result of physical displacement. Tell us a true story—from your life or a family member’s—of finding oneself alone in a new place or situation.
Submissions are open to all and will be judged blindly. Work will be considered in two categories:
1) 18 years and under, and
2) over 18.
Please include your contact information and age category on the first page only. Send submissions of 500 words or fewer to litfest@washingtondcjcc.org by September 27, 2010.
A selection committee will choose three entries in each category to honor during the Festival and online. These winning entries will be published on the 16th Street J’s website and The Blog at 16th & Q. The first place selection in each category will win the Community Prize for Writing and a $100 Visa gift card.
More info: washingtondcjcc.org
Thursday, August 19, 2010
Work in Progress: "Pet Milk," A Perfect Story?
Summer’s over (sort of), or over enough that I had to steer my computer into the files where I keep my “teaching at the low-residency MFA at Converse College” life, and I found this short piece that I shared in June, as part of a panel where the faculty talked about their favorite piece of writing.
I think I would call this story "perfect":
"Pet Milk" by Stuart Dybek
“Today I've been drinking instant coffee and Pet milk, and watching it snow. It's not that I enjoy the taste especially, but I like the way Pet milk swirls in the coffee. Actually, my favorite thing about Pet milk is what the can opener does to the top of the can. The can is unmistakable — compact, seamless looking, its very shape suggesting that it could condense milk without any trouble. The can opener bites in neatly, and the thick liquid spills from the triangular gouge with a different look and viscosity than milk. Pet milk isn't real milk. The color's off, to start with. My grandmother always drank it in her coffee. When friends dropped over and sat around the kitchen table, my grandma would ask, "Do you take cream and sugar?" Pet milk was the cream.
"There was a yellow plastic radio on her kitchen table, usually tuned to the polka station, though sometimes she'd miss it by half a notch and get the Greek station instead, or the Spanish, or the Ukrainian. In Chicago, where we lived, all the incompatible states of Europe were pressed together down at the staticky right end of the dial. She didn't seem to notice, as long as she wasn't hearing English. The radio, turned low, played constantly. Its top was warped and turning amber on the side where the tubes were. I remember the sound of it on winter afternoons after school, as I sat by her table watching the Pet milk swirl and cloud in the steaming coffee, and noticing, outside her window, the sky doing the same thing above the railroad yard across the street."
“Pet Milk” by Stuart Dybek is probably my most favorite short story ever. I first read it in The New Yorker, way back when, and I actually still have those precious, torn-out pages. In a book, the story is only five-ish pages with a negligible “plot” in the traditional sense. But the scope of its effect never fails to leave me breathless, especially with the way food and memory mingle and are intertwined.
We start in the present with the male narrator drinking his coffee the way his Polish grandmother always took her coffee, and lost in the drift of the “cream” in the coffee and the drift of his thoughts and the drift of the snow outside the window, he’s reminded of the past, of his first girlfriend Kate and their first adult jobs out of college, and these swirls of the past collect into a magical brew as ultimately, he remembers the passionate evening when he and Kate were making love on an el train streaking to Evanston and out the window, as the express train slowed while passing through a station, he sees a 16-year-old boy catching sight of them, grinning.
The last line of the story is of the narrator thinking: “It was as if I were standing on that platform, with my schoolbooks and a smoke, on one of those endlessly accumulated afternoons after school when I stood almost outside of time simply waiting for a train, and I thought how much I’d have loved seeing someone like us streaming by.”
Interestingly, I have a vivid and clear and very specific memory of reading this story in The New Yorker in April, just as I was about to graduate from my college in Evanston and head out into the world, hoping my boyfriend was going to stick around with me. I remember the couch where I was curled up, the yellowish light cast by my roommate’s lamp, the rug on the floor that no one vacuumed. And yet when I looked up this story online to prepare for this talk, I realized that the story was published in August—not even a school month—a full year and a half after I left college, my boyfriend long gone—and so my memory is wrong and yet, I have to say, also absolutely right, and that experience, more than anything, is what this story so perfectly captures.
[Note: The story can be found in Stuart Dybek’s collection, The Coast of Chicago. You can find a reductive and silly abstract of the story on The New Yorker's site, but, alas, not the full story.]
I think I would call this story "perfect":
"Pet Milk" by Stuart Dybek
“Today I've been drinking instant coffee and Pet milk, and watching it snow. It's not that I enjoy the taste especially, but I like the way Pet milk swirls in the coffee. Actually, my favorite thing about Pet milk is what the can opener does to the top of the can. The can is unmistakable — compact, seamless looking, its very shape suggesting that it could condense milk without any trouble. The can opener bites in neatly, and the thick liquid spills from the triangular gouge with a different look and viscosity than milk. Pet milk isn't real milk. The color's off, to start with. My grandmother always drank it in her coffee. When friends dropped over and sat around the kitchen table, my grandma would ask, "Do you take cream and sugar?" Pet milk was the cream.
"There was a yellow plastic radio on her kitchen table, usually tuned to the polka station, though sometimes she'd miss it by half a notch and get the Greek station instead, or the Spanish, or the Ukrainian. In Chicago, where we lived, all the incompatible states of Europe were pressed together down at the staticky right end of the dial. She didn't seem to notice, as long as she wasn't hearing English. The radio, turned low, played constantly. Its top was warped and turning amber on the side where the tubes were. I remember the sound of it on winter afternoons after school, as I sat by her table watching the Pet milk swirl and cloud in the steaming coffee, and noticing, outside her window, the sky doing the same thing above the railroad yard across the street."
“Pet Milk” by Stuart Dybek is probably my most favorite short story ever. I first read it in The New Yorker, way back when, and I actually still have those precious, torn-out pages. In a book, the story is only five-ish pages with a negligible “plot” in the traditional sense. But the scope of its effect never fails to leave me breathless, especially with the way food and memory mingle and are intertwined.
We start in the present with the male narrator drinking his coffee the way his Polish grandmother always took her coffee, and lost in the drift of the “cream” in the coffee and the drift of his thoughts and the drift of the snow outside the window, he’s reminded of the past, of his first girlfriend Kate and their first adult jobs out of college, and these swirls of the past collect into a magical brew as ultimately, he remembers the passionate evening when he and Kate were making love on an el train streaking to Evanston and out the window, as the express train slowed while passing through a station, he sees a 16-year-old boy catching sight of them, grinning.
The last line of the story is of the narrator thinking: “It was as if I were standing on that platform, with my schoolbooks and a smoke, on one of those endlessly accumulated afternoons after school when I stood almost outside of time simply waiting for a train, and I thought how much I’d have loved seeing someone like us streaming by.”
Interestingly, I have a vivid and clear and very specific memory of reading this story in The New Yorker in April, just as I was about to graduate from my college in Evanston and head out into the world, hoping my boyfriend was going to stick around with me. I remember the couch where I was curled up, the yellowish light cast by my roommate’s lamp, the rug on the floor that no one vacuumed. And yet when I looked up this story online to prepare for this talk, I realized that the story was published in August—not even a school month—a full year and a half after I left college, my boyfriend long gone—and so my memory is wrong and yet, I have to say, also absolutely right, and that experience, more than anything, is what this story so perfectly captures.
[Note: The story can be found in Stuart Dybek’s collection, The Coast of Chicago. You can find a reductive and silly abstract of the story on The New Yorker's site, but, alas, not the full story.]
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