When Bessa is nine her hair turns gray. Well, to be fair, it is more silver than gray. Some blame it on the abnormally high tides, others on the dismal blue crab harvest of that year, but most claim it is the island itself that has turned her hair that vibrant, glinting shade—that it has done so as it slowly slips into the warm, milky waters of the Chesapeake. You see, the island is sinking.
Alexander Chee: I wanted it to have some of the feeling of a fairy tale, but also some of the feeling of the autobiography of a celebrity from that time. Like the autobiographies of Sarah Bernhardt or Cora Pearl or Celeste Mogador, but if they were a little bewitched. Like a story from Angela Carter's The Bloody Chamber if it ran off to hide in the autobiography section.
The process of reconstructing the past is fascinating, and that’s why I want to spend time working through its complexities and writing history myself. But if I honestly recall what drew me to reading about the past in the first place, it is fiction. Specifically, children’s historical fiction presented as the diaries of girls my age, living through various periods in Canadian and world history.
Anya came home to an apartment that smelled the way it always did when her mom was gone—a little sweet, a little organic. Her mother was up north with a tourist group. She was a translator; whenever she left, there was less music, less cigarette smoke, less warm food in the apartment. The afternoons passed soundlessly into night.
The woman did nothing more to catch Yakov's attention than to stand in the stale morning air, arms folded across her chest. In the crowd of commuters bustling through City Square, she should’ve been invisible, but the sight of her made him stop. He did not think her beautiful. He stared as if he were in one of the city’s churches and she was part of a mural on its wall.
Alex’s hair was beginning to gray at the nape of his neck and he tired after walking up only two flights of stairs. I teased him about these facts only to deflect responsibility.
With every stroke of the pen or tap of the keyboard, I could feel energy pooling in my fingertips. Late at night, I’d touch Alex’s shoulder and feel its frailty, my fingers pressing down and feeling only bone.
There’s no running from worldbuilding anymore. A tidbit of information about The Hunger Games films or "Game of Thrones" leaks, provoking fans and news outlets alike into a frenzy. Entire wikis are meticulously curated for each series, every line and scene analyzed for maximum informative potential. The ability to craft an expansive fictional sandbox for readers to immerse themselves in has become as important as plot lines or characters in determining the enduring popularity…
This week was the full feelings buffet. Remember, you can always come back for more:
Celeste Ng called How to Make Yogurt in Manila by Grace Talusan ‘beautiful and moving’ (on the Twitter machine) so you don’t have to take our word for its awesomeness.
“Things That Are Meant To Make You Feel Safe And Comfortable In A Psych Ward That Just Make You Feel Crazier.” Episode by Naadeyah Haseeb will tear
Helen of Troy I stood in for a thousand ships and you, Paris, hid behind and conducted them with your pinky finger until I was seduced or abducted (they are not so different). Even then, with fleets and armies fanned around you, it was always you most exposed. Me in my silks, and you in your armor, it was you most exposed. Chainlink shirts and sheets of metal, swords at your hips and knives hiding…
The therapist looked disgusted when I told her Quentin's idea of foreplay was an erection against my leg. I felt vindicated. Even she was repulsed by my husband. Our magnetic fields repelled each other on the loveseat. “Thanks for that,” Quentin said in the car. “If it wasn't true I wouldn't say it.” “Did you see the look she gave me?” I wondered what he expected after all this time. “I forget what it's like…
You can tell he has the virus the day he puts his hands on your face when he kisses you, warm fingertips canting your head a few degrees bit off north, which feels sweet, not terrible at all, but is not something he’s done in twenty years of kissing you. He’s picked this up from someone else, someone infected. Later, the realization that you will both die, and soon, but first: Did the other woman…
When Sela Lowe invited her children, Aimee, Bobby, Cecelia, and Matty, to the lake at the beginning of September it was clear the invitation was more demand than request. At least, it was clear to Cecelia. The others viewed Sela’s words as law, as compact phosphorescent orbs of fact, the sort of facts told by honest-to-god truth tellers. “Righteous truths,” Matty once said to Cecelia. Whether demand or fact, Kyle kissed his wife outside the…
It’s raining again and Danni wears a slicker out the door to catch the trolley. No longer their door, just hers. A homeless woman who has become a landmark of Danni’s mornings gibbers to herself from the piss-reeking trolley shelter. She and the woman are always the only black people at the stop. It starts to rain harder, but no one will risk the smell or the woman’s possibly volatile company to sit in the…
BE HONEST, Mel writes. (“No pussyfooting around,” her mother’s voice says in her head, but she knows the guys would razz her for writing “pussy.”) I WANT UR OBJECTIVE OPINION. 1 TO 10. It’s dangerous to ask for a number. Other girls are master fishers, staving off cruelty with their own ruthlessness: i know im fat, i know my hair sucks, i just want to know how hopeless things are. Mostly the guys play along,…
I know, I know. So many incredible things to read, so little time. And the internet rolls by so fast it’s impossible to keep up. Especially when there’s the Drake/Meek Mill beef and ‘great’ white hunters poaching the lion king. So what did you miss at The Butter this week?
Roxane Gay talks real talk about serial rapist, Bill Cosby: “The faith I once had in Cosby angers and shames me.”
