[weekly_books]
This week’s short reads
One excellent creative nonfiction piece by Abby Manzella, and short stories by Katy Goforth, Jisun Park, Mari Klein and Beth Sherman.
When the Tearing Comes, If It Comes by Abby Manzella
Manzella writes about being at high risk for a retinal detachment, and the weak reassurances from the medical experts:
Another doctor tells me, without looking into my eyes or through them, that such darknesses are common. You’ll get used to them. As she speaks, an amoeba floats from my nose and through the air. When I blink, a piece of straw returns from the other corner. It’s hard to pay attention when the wilds are within your sight.
It’s nonfiction and it has lingered with me for days after reading it.
Calling the Boys Home by Katy Goforth
A sweet, sad story about Donny Peirce, who has never spent time away from a tiny town in South Carolina. His best friend Teddy is off to college, and Donny’s not sure Teddy will have time for him anymore.
Teddy and I have grown up together here on the Pee Dee. But Teddy left about a month ago for Clemson University. Said he was going to study agriculture and come back to help his daddy. He will be back. This place is like a boomerang. Shoots you out into the world, but you get slung right on back.
I’m scared of leaving home. The rest of the world has different rules it lives by. They’re complicated and tiered.
Heartbeat by Jisun Park
Park writes about the anxiety and fear that comes with being a new parent in a way that brought me right back to those days:
It occurs to me that there are an infinite number of ways that my baby could die, and it is up to me, an untrained civilian with no prior experience whatsoever, to anticipate them all. They say babies, children, people are hardy. “Stronger than you think!” But only the parents of those who have already mastered living say that.
To the Other Side by Mari Klein
A dreamlike vision of the apocalypse that begs to be turned into something longform. The mood of this story is haunting:
There must have been thousands or tens of thousands of people marching along the winding streets ahead and behind them, but in the thick of the crowd, all they could see was an endless mass of shoulders and calves. Now, as on the other days of the week, it was drizzling, with an occasional low rumble of thunder, followed by a faint flash of lightning; the sky seemed lazy to rouse its energies, and plodded along its marked course, more out of habit than anger.
Blackhearts by Beth Sherman
A child watches her mother struggle to adapt after her marriage falls apart. Sherman writes this story like a memoir, and I had to double check that it wasn’t.
You have to be badass, she told me. Make them want what they can’t have.
I was twelve.