Pub Date : 2024-02-08DOI: 10.1353/sew.2024.a919137
Keith Leonard
In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:
Galocher
Keith Leonard (bio)
The pepper-hint in the arugula.The vinegar pinchin the homemade dressing.The sweet potatowith its puck of butterlighting up our lips.Dinner is the only timewhen what’s going onin your mouth is alsogoing on in my mouth.It’s dinner and it’s kissing.Kissing as the French do.But the French don’t call it“French kissing.” Until recently,there was no word for it in Paris.Now they call it “galocher,”which is a play on the phrasefor ice skates. The tongueslike paired figure skatersgliding into a layback spin.The cherry-flip and loop.The synchronous triple axle.I like, very much, this performance [End Page 57]of being your partner.We practice our lifts. We orchestrateour routine so one of uscan pick up the kidswhile the other readsor breathes for an hour.When you set the table,you furnish yourselfwith the chipped plate.Our water glasses reflectthe last bit of day. Most likelyone of us will have to glide alone.The pond will be colder then.The sound of skates carving iceechoing between the naked trees.When there is less to saydoes the tongue begin to atrophy?I can imagine mine so idle. [End Page 58]
Keith Leonard
Keith Leonard is the author of the poetry collection Ramshackle Ode (Ecco/HarperCollins 2016). His poems have appeared recently in the American Poetry Review, the Believer, New England Review, Poetry, and Ploughshares. He lives in Columbus, Ohio.
Pub Date : 2024-02-08DOI: 10.1353/sew.2024.a919131
Michael Bazzett
In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:
Don’t Leave a Good Time Looking for a Good Time
Michael Bazzett (bio)
is advice I received from a colleaguewith an incongruous ponytailwho once gave his students a testwith only one problem: Define Mathematics.He looked wistful as he relayedtheir consternation and befuddlementover a bowl of forlorn noodlesin the school cafeteria. When askedhow he’d respond, he shruggedand said, “The search for patterns.”“That’s nice,” I said, then repeatedthe phrase, “The search for patterns.”The admonishment to not leavea good time looking for a good timeis also symmetrical, and thus hintsat an endless unfolding patternof wisely choosing stasis to conservewhat little happiness we encounter,yet also begs the question of howwe might parse the nuance of timesthat are good and those merely goodenough? This advice arrived not [End Page 1]in the cafeteria, but over a littlewhisky during an anecdote in whichhe’d reached beneath his girlfriend’sporch to pluck up the pink tailof what he’d thought was a babysnake yet was in reality a possumswinging like a lantern in his grip.“They have yellow needly teeth.They smell like they’re inside out,”he said, “They are not a good time.And if I’d just stayed where I was,I would not have been clutchingthis hissing menace, which I flunggently into the kudzu.” “Which iswhen I knew,” interrupted his then-girlfriend, now-wife, “That he wasthe one.” As she spoke, he sippedhis drink, sat back, and played dead. [End Page 2]
Michael Bazzett
Michael Bazzett is the author of four books of poetry, most recently The Echo Chamber (Milkweed Editions 2021). His translation of the selected poems of Humberto Ak’abal, If Today Were Tomorrow, is forthcoming from Milkweed in 2024.
Pub Date : 2024-02-08DOI: 10.1353/sew.2024.a919142
Rachel Rinehart
In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:
Soundings
Rachel Rinehart (bio)
Suddenly, it is nightand the technicianis holding not a wandbut her leather marksand plummet.
Still, we see only static,only mist roilingover the horizon,where maybe you are
a soft light in shadows.Row closer, my child,let me kiss the slip of you,your little body unmadein its making.
Let me put my lipsto the cooling coalof your heart, let me lightyour salt swept lamp. [End Page 102]
O least of mine,let me bless you,your skiff and your sail,let me keep with youthis last flickering vigil—
this hour beforethe carpenter rousesin the scud and swellof fourth watch, steps offthe prow and bids mecome, have faith,
and hand you on. [End Page 103]
Rachel Rinehart
Rachel Rinehart’s poetry collection The Church in the Plains was selected by Peter Everwine as the winner of the 2016 Philip Levine Poetry Prize and was published by Anhinga Press in 2018. She lives in Grayson, Kentucky, with her husband and children.
Pub Date : 2024-02-08DOI: 10.1353/sew.2024.a919138
Derrick Austin
<span><span>In lieu of</span> an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:</span> <p> <ul> <li><!-- html_title --> <em>Homage to Richmond Barthé</em>, and: <em>Night Walk</em>, and: <em>After A Year Sober</em>, and: <em>Homage to Lyle Ashton Harris</em>, and: <em>To Sleep</em>, and: <em>The Age of Pleasure</em> <!-- /html_title --></li> <li> Derrick Austin (bio) </li> </ul> <h2><em>Homage to Richmond Barthé</em></h2> <p><span>If Barthé’s <em>Boy with a Flute</em></span><span>has completed his performance,</span><span>eyes rising to meet the eyes</span><span> of the one who listened</span><span>seated in a flowering grove,</span><span>then, perhaps, the viewer is invited to partake</span><span> of music and loose time.</span><span>If, however, the boy has not begun playing</span><span>in the flowering grove,</span><span>or has refused to begin, the song remains metaphysical</span><span>but turned inward, private,</span><span> thus the viewer must attend</span><span>to the bronze fact of his attenuated body,</span><span> where his heart would be.</span></p> <p><span>.......................</span></p> <p><span>“Truly it is a great thing to know of the rich heritage</span><span>of this French-speaking nation</span><span>and to learn we are all brothers under the skin after all,”</span><span>Barthé said to a reporter in 1949,</span><span>struggling with the Haitian president’s commission, <strong>[End Page 59]</strong></span> <span>heavy with his mother’s death,</span><span>desolate and money-troubled.</span></p> <p><span>He hoped the muse would come courting</span><span>in a seersucker suit.</span></p> <p><span>He wrote letters weekly</span><span> (Chicago, New York City, New Orleans)</span><span>inviting friends to sip a Campari spritz</span><span>in his ramshackle estate</span><span>named Iolaus, after the gay anthology, a wink and prayer.</span></p> <p><span>.......................</span></p> <p><span>The humidity addles my mind like gin.</span><span> Smoking a blunt,</span><span>shells and glass crackling underfoot,</span><span> I encounter a leg,</span></p> <p><span>not human or beast—not beast anymore</span><span> divorced from its body: a hoof</span><span>hooded with mange. Like the eucharist,</span><span> the leg represents nothing but itself.</span></p> <p><span>Barthé appears beside a deer</span><span> eating the sea grapes meant for jelly jars.</span><span>When I offer him a hit, he refuses.</span><span> When I offer my hand, he smiles and refuses.</span></p> <p><span>The red mangrove he points to speaks</span><span> like a minor prophet: My leaves glow with salt, <strong>[End Page 60]</strong></span> <span>a fire that scalds but leaves me whole,</span><span> a fire that does not warm nor console.</span></p> <p><span>Perhaps, loneliness merely banks the flame</span><span> where we can gather ourselves and each other.</span><span>I exhale smoke. I feel light.</span><span> Barthé steps and returns to the night. <strong>[End Page 61]<
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Pub Date : 2024-02-08DOI: 10.1353/sew.2024.a919132
Peter Kispert
<span><span>In lieu of</span> an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:</span> <p> <ul> <li><!-- html_title --> 404 <!-- /html_title --></li> <li> Peter Kispert (bio) </li> </ul> <p><strong>C</strong>harles was getting better—healing I mean, after last year had tortured us both—and it was completely ruining the plan. For the better part of two years, we spent sleepless nights in small single-floor sublets in and around Boston, living among broken ovens and cheap white fridges that shook themselves awake and groaned, always awoken by the sound of traffic outside the window, never staying for longer than a few months. I tried on stupid aliases every now and again to make it seem like this was all a joke. Maybe we did have more options than siphoning funds from whoever fell for our shit. Like any idiots in their late twenties, we flirted with our own exposure: just weeks ago a young delivery man in Jamaica Plain saw me suppress a laugh at the utterance of my own “name”; <em>Richard Balls</em> is one you have to practice saying without cracking up. But I wasn’t looking at this man’s reaction; I was watching Charles stifle a smile. Somewhere during these past months I’d lost the ability to make him laugh, and found myself savoring the feeling, swept back to our first nights together. That bone-cold winter, warmed only by each other’s bodies. <strong>[End Page 3]</strong></p> <p>Now it was almost June, and we were in a new place near the Bay—a green marble kitchen island, among other upgrades—thanks to a man named Daryl who donated several thousand to “unlock” his long-lost sister’s fortune. (“What does that even mean?” Charles had asked me as I read him Daryl’s reply one night. “I don’t know,” I’d said. “But he’s buying it.”) For a while I was getting lucky in my emails with what I called the grandmother sweet-spot: comic sans, size fourteen font, spacing a little off, some purple type in there, asking for just a little help—and <em>then</em> the link. You send that to two hundred John Smiths and wait for someone to bite, some idiot to just give themselves up for chivalry. <em>That’s what you get for having a normal name</em>, I’d think as the first bouncebacks hit. We assumed, of course, that a normal name also meant a normal life, which also meant comfort, stability, the things Charles and I could do without. Like gilled fish that thrive even out of water, we imagined we were unique to a point of freakishness, normal only with each other. I’d forgotten that was what I preferred, and now I was too good at this: six grand on a Tuesday afternoon while I licked the lid of a pudding cup. A résumé of petty thefts and two DUIs, a rescinded college admission: you get something like that early enough, the future just seals up. These hours together were our cheat code to another life, or had been until the past few weeks, when Charles started getting himself together as we packed boxes, ready to ditch the mold and nail-studded floors for good. He w
{"title":"404","authors":"Peter Kispert","doi":"10.1353/sew.2024.a919132","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/sew.2024.a919132","url":null,"abstract":"<span><span>In lieu of</span> an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:</span>\u0000<p> <ul> <li><!-- html_title --> 404 <!-- /html_title --></li> <li> Peter Kispert (bio) </li> </ul> <p><strong>C</strong>harles was getting better—healing I mean, after last year had tortured us both—and it was completely ruining the plan. For the better part of two years, we spent sleepless nights in small single-floor sublets in and around Boston, living among broken ovens and cheap white fridges that shook themselves awake and groaned, always awoken by the sound of traffic outside the window, never staying for longer than a few months. I tried on stupid aliases every now and again to make it seem like this was all a joke. Maybe we did have more options than siphoning funds from whoever fell for our shit. Like any idiots in their late twenties, we flirted with our own exposure: just weeks ago a young delivery man in Jamaica Plain saw me suppress a laugh at the utterance of my own “name”; <em>Richard Balls</em> is one you have to practice saying without cracking up. But I wasn’t looking at this man’s reaction; I was watching Charles stifle a smile. Somewhere during these past months I’d lost the ability to make him laugh, and found myself savoring the feeling, swept back to our first nights together. That bone-cold winter, warmed only by each other’s bodies. <strong>[End Page 3]</strong></p> <p>Now it was almost June, and we were in a new place near the Bay—a green marble kitchen island, among other upgrades—thanks to a man named Daryl who donated several thousand to “unlock” his long-lost sister’s fortune. (“What does that even mean?” Charles had asked me as I read him Daryl’s reply one night. “I don’t know,” I’d said. “But he’s buying it.”) For a while I was getting lucky in my emails with what I called the grandmother sweet-spot: comic sans, size fourteen font, spacing a little off, some purple type in there, asking for just a little help—and <em>then</em> the link. You send that to two hundred John Smiths and wait for someone to bite, some idiot to just give themselves up for chivalry. <em>That’s what you get for having a normal name</em>, I’d think as the first bouncebacks hit. We assumed, of course, that a normal name also meant a normal life, which also meant comfort, stability, the things Charles and I could do without. Like gilled fish that thrive even out of water, we imagined we were unique to a point of freakishness, normal only with each other. I’d forgotten that was what I preferred, and now I was too good at this: six grand on a Tuesday afternoon while I licked the lid of a pudding cup. A résumé of petty thefts and two DUIs, a rescinded college admission: you get something like that early enough, the future just seals up. These hours together were our cheat code to another life, or had been until the past few weeks, when Charles started getting himself together as we packed boxes, ready to ditch the mold and nail-studded floors for good. He w","PeriodicalId":43824,"journal":{"name":"SEWANEE REVIEW","volume":"36 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-02-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139910868","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-02-08DOI: 10.1353/sew.2024.a919143
Ryan Chapman
<span><span>In lieu of</span> an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:</span> <p> <ul> <li><!-- html_title --> Good Grief: <span>On The 2023 Booker Prize</span> <!-- /html_title --></li> <li> Ryan Chapman (bio) </li> </ul> <p><strong>A</strong> week after the 2022 Booker Prize award ceremony, Rishi Sunak became the first British Indian to be appointed Prime Minister. He was the third PM in as many months. This milestone received a shrugged acknowledgement from my Sri Lankan uncles back in Minnesota, whose enthusiasm for a statesman from the subcontinent was tempered by the Conservative Party’s hot streak of self-owns. For my part, I took umbrage at Sunak’s CV: Americans know that marrying an heiress (John Kerry, John McCain) and skipping through the Goldman-to-government turnstile (Hank Paulson, Steve Mnuchin) is <em>our</em> thing.</p> <p>Two months later, his boss’s youngest son Harry released a ghostwritten tell-all, breaking sales records for a memoir. It became the fastest-selling nonfiction title in the United Kingdom, and globally moved three million units in its first week alone. For comparison, only two Booker winners have scaled such capitalist heights: Hilary Mantel’s <em>Wolf Hall</em> and Yann Martel’s <em>Life of Pi</em>.</p> <p>And then in May, Harry’s dad finally got that callback. The coronation of King Charles III cost an estimated 100 million dollars—four <strong>[End Page 104]</strong> times his mum’s, even adjusted for inflation—with a guest list that included surprise monarchists like Nick Cave and Katy Perry. The peaked septuagenarian cosplayed himself into parody earnestly and glacially. Unfortunately, we never got Martin Amis’s take on the whole boondoggle: the writer passed away on May 19 and was knighted by the new king a month later. (Since posthumous knighthoods are verboten, Charles backdated Amis’s to May 18.) Amis would have appreciated being honored by the very man with whom he argued the 1989 fatwa against his friend Salman Rushdie; Charles did not rush to Sir Salman’s defense.</p> <p>Last year’s Booker went to Shehan Karunatilaka for <em>The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida</em>. Karunatilaka is the second Sri Lankan recipient, following Michael Ondaatje who won for <em>The English Patient</em> in 1992. (Even then, Ondaatje was named cowinner with Barry Unsworth, the author of <em>Sacred Hunger</em>.) Ondaatje’s novel is still beautiful and affecting. As is <em>Anil’s Ghost</em>, his consideration of the Sri Lankan civil war, which shares a setting with <em>Maali Almeida</em> and none of its tone. Karunatilaka’s win was heartening, and his globe-trotting press tour highly entertaining. The man gives good copy, both figuratively and literally—like Rushdie, he once worked in advertising. Tara K. Menon wrote in these pages that 2022 was a rare instance of the best shortlisted book winning the prize, a fact supported by anyone familiar with its history. <em>Possession</em>’s A. S. Byatt said, “I’ve won it an
以下是内容的简要摘录，以代替摘要： 好悲伤：关于 2023 年布克奖 瑞安-查普曼（简历） 在 2022 年布克奖颁奖典礼一周后，瑞希-苏纳克成为第一位被任命为首相的英籍印度人。他是几个月内的第三位首相。我在明尼苏达州的斯里兰卡叔叔们对这一里程碑式的事件嗤之以鼻，他们对来自次大陆的政治家的热情因保守党的自以为是而大打折扣。就我而言，我对苏纳克的简历表示不满：美国人都知道，娶个女继承人（约翰-克里、约翰-麦凯恩）和跳过高盛的政府转门（汉克-保尔森、史蒂夫-姆努钦）是我们的事情。两个月后，他老板的小儿子哈里（Harry）出版了一本鬼才撰写的自传，打破了回忆录的销售记录。这本书成为英国销售最快的非虚构类书籍，仅第一周就在全球销售了 300 万册。相比之下，只有两位布克奖获得者达到过这样的资本主义高度：希拉里-曼特尔的《狼厅》和扬-马特尔的《少年Pi的奇幻漂流》。五月，哈利的父亲终于得到了回音。国王查尔斯三世的加冕典礼耗资约 1 亿美元，即使考虑到通货膨胀因素，也是他妈妈的四 [尾页 104]倍，宾客名单上还包括尼克-凯夫（Nick Cave）和凯蒂-佩里（Katy Perry）等君主主义者。这位年过七旬的巅峰人物认真而缓慢地将自己模仿得惟妙惟肖。遗憾的是，我们没有看到马丁-艾米斯（Martin Amis）对整个事件的看法：这位作家于 5 月 19 日去世，一个月后被新国王册封为爵士。(由于追封爵位是不允许的，查尔斯将艾米斯的爵位追溯到了 5 月 18 日）。阿米曾在1989年与此人争论过针对他的朋友萨尔曼-拉什迪（Salman Rushdie）的 "法特瓦"（fatwa），而查尔斯并没有急于为萨尔曼爵士辩护。去年的布克奖颁给了谢汉-卡鲁纳蒂拉卡（Shehan Karunatilaka）的《马利-阿尔梅达的七个月亮》（The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida）。继 1992 年迈克尔-翁达杰凭借《英国病人》获奖之后，卡鲁纳蒂拉卡是第二位斯里兰卡获奖者。(即便如此，翁达杰还是与《神圣的饥饿》的作者巴里-恩斯沃斯（Barry Unsworth）一起被评为 "牛人"）。Ondaatje 的小说依然优美动人。阿尼尔的幽灵》是他对斯里兰卡内战的思考，与《马力-阿尔梅达》有着相同的背景，却没有相同的基调。卡鲁纳蒂拉卡的获奖令人振奋，他的环球新闻之旅也非常有趣。他的文案很好，无论是形象上还是文字上，就像拉什迪一样，他也曾在广告界工作过。塔拉-K.-梅农（Tara K. Menon）在本版撰文指出，《2022》是入围最佳图书获奖的罕见例子，熟悉该奖项历史的人都支持这一观点。占有》的作者 A. S. Byatt 说："我得过奖，也评过奖，这就是抽奖。希拉里-曼特尔也是布克奖的评委和（两次）获奖者："即使是最正确的评委也会去做马后炮和游戏规则，而最终出现的是妥协"。也许是为了消除这种指责，2023 主席埃西-埃杜吉扬（Esi Edugyan）吹嘘评审团的热情和友善。她可能也在用 "没有什么'布克账本'"这样的公开言论来挫败赔率制定者。(赌徒们最初看好 Tan Twan Eng 的 [End Page 105] 《The House of Doors》，但该书未能入围）。布克奖的评委来自文学界、学术界和流行文化界。曾两次入围布克奖的加拿大小说家埃杜扬是《混血蓝调》和《华盛顿黑夜》的作者。罗伯特-韦伯（Robert Webb）和阿乔阿-安多（Adjoa Andoh）也将与她同台献艺，罗伯特-韦伯可能是美国人从马拉松式喜剧《偷窥秀》（Peep Show）和小品喜剧《米切尔和韦伯的样子》（That Mitchell and Webb Look）中认识的，阿乔阿-安多曾在皇家莎士比亚剧团（Royal Shakespeare Company）演出，并为多部有声读物配音，但她更为人所知的角色可能是《布里奇顿》（Bridgerton）。今年的评委还包括科斯塔奖获奖诗人玛丽-让-陈（Mary Jean Chan）和莎士比亚学者詹姆斯-夏皮罗（James Shapiro）。评委们在七个月的时间里阅读了 160 多本书，并将他们的个人最爱筛选出入围名单。入围的六部作品会被再次阅读，或在最终评审日之前被阅读三次。闭门会谈历来都不是这样的：法学家的离职面谈通常是与一位成员一起进行的...
{"title":"Good Grief: On The 2023 Booker Prize","authors":"Ryan Chapman","doi":"10.1353/sew.2024.a919143","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/sew.2024.a919143","url":null,"abstract":"<span><span>In lieu of</span> an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:</span>\u0000<p> <ul> <li><!-- html_title --> Good Grief: <span>On The 2023 Booker Prize</span> <!-- /html_title --></li> <li> Ryan Chapman (bio) </li> </ul> <p><strong>A</strong> week after the 2022 Booker Prize award ceremony, Rishi Sunak became the first British Indian to be appointed Prime Minister. He was the third PM in as many months. This milestone received a shrugged acknowledgement from my Sri Lankan uncles back in Minnesota, whose enthusiasm for a statesman from the subcontinent was tempered by the Conservative Party’s hot streak of self-owns. For my part, I took umbrage at Sunak’s CV: Americans know that marrying an heiress (John Kerry, John McCain) and skipping through the Goldman-to-government turnstile (Hank Paulson, Steve Mnuchin) is <em>our</em> thing.</p> <p>Two months later, his boss’s youngest son Harry released a ghostwritten tell-all, breaking sales records for a memoir. It became the fastest-selling nonfiction title in the United Kingdom, and globally moved three million units in its first week alone. For comparison, only two Booker winners have scaled such capitalist heights: Hilary Mantel’s <em>Wolf Hall</em> and Yann Martel’s <em>Life of Pi</em>.</p> <p>And then in May, Harry’s dad finally got that callback. The coronation of King Charles III cost an estimated 100 million dollars—four <strong>[End Page 104]</strong> times his mum’s, even adjusted for inflation—with a guest list that included surprise monarchists like Nick Cave and Katy Perry. The peaked septuagenarian cosplayed himself into parody earnestly and glacially. Unfortunately, we never got Martin Amis’s take on the whole boondoggle: the writer passed away on May 19 and was knighted by the new king a month later. (Since posthumous knighthoods are verboten, Charles backdated Amis’s to May 18.) Amis would have appreciated being honored by the very man with whom he argued the 1989 fatwa against his friend Salman Rushdie; Charles did not rush to Sir Salman’s defense.</p> <p>Last year’s Booker went to Shehan Karunatilaka for <em>The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida</em>. Karunatilaka is the second Sri Lankan recipient, following Michael Ondaatje who won for <em>The English Patient</em> in 1992. (Even then, Ondaatje was named cowinner with Barry Unsworth, the author of <em>Sacred Hunger</em>.) Ondaatje’s novel is still beautiful and affecting. As is <em>Anil’s Ghost</em>, his consideration of the Sri Lankan civil war, which shares a setting with <em>Maali Almeida</em> and none of its tone. Karunatilaka’s win was heartening, and his globe-trotting press tour highly entertaining. The man gives good copy, both figuratively and literally—like Rushdie, he once worked in advertising. Tara K. Menon wrote in these pages that 2022 was a rare instance of the best shortlisted book winning the prize, a fact supported by anyone familiar with its history. <em>Possession</em>’s A. S. Byatt said, “I’ve won it an","PeriodicalId":43824,"journal":{"name":"SEWANEE REVIEW","volume":"13 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-02-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139767479","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-02-08DOI: 10.1353/sew.2024.a919136
Cindy Juyoung Ok
<span><span>In lieu of</span> an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:</span> <p> <ul> <li><!-- html_title --> <em>Before the DMZ</em>, and: <em>Faint</em> <!-- /html_title --></li> <li> Cindy Juyoung Ok (bio) </li> </ul> <h2><em>Before the DMZ</em></h2> <p><span> My</span><span> moth-</span><span> er sent</span><span> a photo of</span><span> the federal build-</span><span> ing she was</span><span> being naturalized in,</span><span> writing, <em>Boring I</em></span><span> <em>love you</em>. That winter</span><span> her father revealed he left</span><span> behind a first wife, two kids, north</span><span> before the war, the news unremarkable</span><span> because <em>For us, everybody had somebody they—</em></span><span><em> </em> So my mother hired an investigator; visited</span><span> because, newly American, she could. She flew</span><span> south after, and at her photos, he pointed at</span> <span>the 67-year-old he had last known at seven.</span> <span>Said, <em>She was smart. She was really smart</em>.</span> <span>Within a year he lost his memory to</span><span> stroke. He cried when they</span><span> tied him so he could not</span><span> pull his tubes out and</span><span> my mother had only seen</span><span> him cry when the special ran</span><span> on public broadcast. Ten thou-</span><span> sand families reunited while every-</span><span> one watched. Doesn’t anyone k-</span><span> now this person? Live calls, arti- Gen-</span><span>facts, tears—she watched erally no</span><span> him watch. one recalled where</span><span> they had been separated.</span><span> But a ripped hem, or rules</span><span> of a childhood game, that big</span><span> mole. A port of waiting. I al-</span><span> ways wanted to hate binary</span><span> but I grew up here where the</span><span> cure to forgetting a stubborn</span><span> chorus is doing simple arithmetic. Her</span><span> trip north was strange, formal—</span><span> delicate words, doubtful gestures.</span><span> She noticed the brother had pso-</span><span> riasis on his knuckles and hid her</span><span> laughter in a corner, her scars proof</span><span> of genes that had skipped the one</span><span> brother she knew. The countries</span><span> are linked by land—mostly, I know,</span><span> by an area covered in stone. I ima-</span><span> gine jade-colored water between</span><span> them, a wide, boring o-</span><span> cean on the thirty-</span><span> eighth</span><span> parallel. <strong>[End Page 55]</strong></span></p> <h2><em>Faint</em></h2> <p><span>Vagueness tends to criminalize</span><span>and of few available alternatives</span><span>my favorite is the dream of the same</span></p> <p><span>room. Pick your noise, in wells</span><span>or against walls. In the light</span></p> <p><span>of the microwave clock, under advice</span><span>of long symbols, showily I become</span></p> <p><span>my own guest (in mother words,</span><span>a duty). Oxygen a calm oddity</span><span>everywhere b
{"title":"Before the DMZ, and: Faint","authors":"Cindy Juyoung Ok","doi":"10.1353/sew.2024.a919136","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/sew.2024.a919136","url":null,"abstract":"<span><span>In lieu of</span> an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:</span>\u0000<p> <ul> <li><!-- html_title --> <em>Before the DMZ</em>, and: <em>Faint</em> <!-- /html_title --></li> <li> Cindy Juyoung Ok (bio) </li> </ul> <h2><em>Before the DMZ</em></h2> <p><span> My</span><span> moth-</span><span> er sent</span><span> a photo of</span><span> the federal build-</span><span> ing she was</span><span> being naturalized in,</span><span> writing, <em>Boring I</em></span><span> <em>love you</em>. That winter</span><span> her father revealed he left</span><span> behind a first wife, two kids, north</span><span> before the war, the news unremarkable</span><span> because <em>For us, everybody had somebody they—</em></span><span><em> </em> So my mother hired an investigator; visited</span><span> because, newly American, she could. She flew</span><span> south after, and at her photos, he pointed at</span> <span>the 67-year-old he had last known at seven.</span> <span>Said, <em>She was smart. She was really smart</em>.</span> <span>Within a year he lost his memory to</span><span> stroke. He cried when they</span><span> tied him so he could not</span><span> pull his tubes out and</span><span> my mother had only seen</span><span> him cry when the special ran</span><span> on public broadcast. Ten thou-</span><span> sand families reunited while every-</span><span> one watched. Doesn’t anyone k-</span><span> now this person? Live calls, arti- Gen-</span><span>facts, tears—she watched erally no</span><span> him watch. one recalled where</span><span> they had been separated.</span><span> But a ripped hem, or rules</span><span> of a childhood game, that big</span><span> mole. A port of waiting. I al-</span><span> ways wanted to hate binary</span><span> but I grew up here where the</span><span> cure to forgetting a stubborn</span><span> chorus is doing simple arithmetic. Her</span><span> trip north was strange, formal—</span><span> delicate words, doubtful gestures.</span><span> She noticed the brother had pso-</span><span> riasis on his knuckles and hid her</span><span> laughter in a corner, her scars proof</span><span> of genes that had skipped the one</span><span> brother she knew. The countries</span><span> are linked by land—mostly, I know,</span><span> by an area covered in stone. I ima-</span><span> gine jade-colored water between</span><span> them, a wide, boring o-</span><span> cean on the thirty-</span><span> eighth</span><span> parallel. <strong>[End Page 55]</strong></span></p> <h2><em>Faint</em></h2> <p><span>Vagueness tends to criminalize</span><span>and of few available alternatives</span><span>my favorite is the dream of the same</span></p> <p><span>room. Pick your noise, in wells</span><span>or against walls. In the light</span></p> <p><span>of the microwave clock, under advice</span><span>of long symbols, showily I become</span></p> <p><span>my own guest (in mother words,</span><span>a duty). Oxygen a calm oddity</span><span>everywhere b","PeriodicalId":43824,"journal":{"name":"SEWANEE REVIEW","volume":"15 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-02-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139773518","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-02-08DOI: 10.1353/sew.2024.a919139
Olivia Nathan
<span><span>In lieu of</span> an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:</span> <p> <ul> <li><!-- html_title --> Anachronisms <!-- /html_title --></li> <li> Olivia Nathan (bio) </li> </ul> <h2><em>1</em></h2> <p><strong>T</strong>he night before her history test, T’s legs turned into lightbulbs.</p> <p>Hoot, the family Pomeranian, had been sitting beneath her desk, and T accidentally kicked him as she crossed her legs. In a show of defiance, he left her room and trotted downstairs. T didn’t notice. She forgot the new purplish pimple forming like a grape on her forehead; she forgot the allotted forty minutes of TV she’d been dying to watch; she even forgot to look up at her face smeared in the window beside her desk to contemplate her crush kissing it, though the ache of that longing never left her. As she slipped into bed, each flash card she’d studied after dinner was still moving behind her eyes. Her mind had been consumed by the details of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire. It was as if the fire itself had invaded her mind and left it razed and scorched.</p> <p>Doing better in history was high on T’s list of New Year’s resolutions. It was near the top of a list her parents oversaw, regularly <strong>[End Page 71]</strong> reminding her to practice clarinet every day and to make more lists. They had thwacked the list to the fridge with a magnet that said <small>queen of fucking everything</small> that Queenie, T’s older sister, had left at home when she moved to college. T thought of it as the only remnant of Queenie left in the house. The pink bedroom, which sat empty across from hers, did not recall her sister’s dry and crass sense of humor, nor did the trio of Hello Kitty clocks tocking on her wall.</p> <p>So T had no choice but to get a B+ or A- on the test. Her parents couldn’t understand why she wasn’t already getting B+s or A-s, given T loved the subject.</p> <p>“We don’t understand why you’re not getting B+s or A-s,” they said. “You love history.”</p> <p>This was true. T had spent the month of July on her laptop, watching a lecture series called <em>The History and Mystery of Venetian Watermarks</em> from The Great Courses. (She looked up what water-marks were and then she Googled what Italian iconography meant.) She was quickly consumed by the eight-part lecture series, given by a surprisingly handsome, long-haired professor.</p> <p>Many of the Venetian watermarks looked like horse brandings or ancient family crests; but one, dated as early as 1500, looked like a lightbulb—a watery lightbulb pressed into the middle of the page, crushing the fibers of parchment to allow light to stream through. T had watched the watermark illuminated by candlelight in the reenactment; it shone through where the paper thinned down its curves. How did sixteenth-century Italians know what a lightbulb would look like? There were even undulating lines in the water-mark signifying the metal foot and both sides of the bulb were chubby-cheeked.</p>
以下是内容的简要摘录，以代替摘要： 不合时宜 奥利维亚-内森（简历） 1 在历史考试的前一天晚上，T 的双腿变成了电灯泡。家里的博美犬 Hoot 一直坐在她的桌子下面，T 在翘起二郎腿时不小心踢到了它。为了表示反抗，它离开了她的房间，小跑着下了楼。T 没有注意到。她忘记了额头上像葡萄一样新长出的紫红色痘痘；忘记了她一直想看的四十分钟电视；她甚至忘记了抬头看看书桌旁窗户上自己的脸，想象她暗恋的人正在亲吻她的脸，尽管那种渴望的疼痛从未离开过她。当她悄悄上床睡觉时，晚饭后学习的每张闪存卡还在她的眼前晃动。她的思绪被三角衬衫厂大火的细节所吞噬。就好像大火本身已经侵入了她的脑海，让她的脑海被夷为平地，一片焦土。在 T 的新年愿望中，把历史学得更好是最重要的一项。在她父母的监督下，她每天都会定期提醒她练习单簧管，并列出更多的清单。他们在冰箱上贴了一块磁铁，上面写着 "他妈的一切的女王"，这块磁铁是 T 的姐姐奎妮（Queenie）上大学时留在家里的。T 认为这是奎妮留在家里的唯一遗物。粉红色的卧室空荡荡地摆在她的卧室对面，让人想不起姐姐那干练粗俗的幽默感，也想不起她家墙上的三只 Hello Kitty 闹钟。所以 T 别无选择，只能在考试中拿到 B+ 或 A-。她的父母不明白，既然 T 喜欢这门学科，为什么她不能拿到 B+ 或 A-。他们说："我们不明白你为什么拿不到B+或A-""你喜欢历史"这是事实。T 整个七月都在笔记本电脑上观看《伟大课程》（The Great Courses）的系列讲座《威尼斯水印的历史与奥秘》（The History and Mystery of Venetian Watermarks）。(她先查了水印是什么，然后在谷歌上搜索了意大利图标的含义）。她很快就被这个由八部分组成的系列讲座吸引住了，讲课的是一位英俊的长发教授。许多威尼斯水印看起来像马的烙印或古老的家族徽章；但有一个早在 1500 年就有的水印看起来像一个灯泡--一个水汪汪的灯泡被压在书页中间，挤压羊皮纸的纤维，让光线透过。T 在重演中看到水印被烛光照亮；它在纸张变薄的弧度处闪闪发光。十六世纪的意大利人怎么会知道灯泡是什么样子的？水印上甚至还有起伏的线条，表示金属脚，灯泡的两边都是胖嘟嘟的脸颊。在一些讲座中，T 做起了白日梦。她靠在课桌椅上，想着九年级时的暗恋对象，后来又变成了十年级时的暗恋对象。她做白日梦，想摸摸他胸前的凹陷处 [第 72 页完]，他戴的十字架就在那里。她做着威尼斯的白日梦，威尼斯的水在阳光的折射下充满活力，把城市的地下室、横梁和灰泥都变成了泥浆。T 想知道为什么太阳能创造出比灯泡更美丽的色彩。为什么火和火焰能把世界变成蓝色和乳白色，而她卧室里的灯却只能让一切看起来和原来一样--她地毯上褪色的绿色，她头发上黑色的发卷，她拇指上红色的指甲缝。三角橱窗工厂的工人们在一场大火中被烧死了，大火可能烧出了她们眼睛里的蜜糖，脖子上的紫罗兰色血管，以及上嘴唇上永远露水的灿烂光泽。T 从闪存卡中抬起头。死亡人数为 246 人。这相当于她十年级的班级加上整个十一年级。当然，没有人死在威尼斯的水印纸上
{"title":"Anachronisms","authors":"Olivia Nathan","doi":"10.1353/sew.2024.a919139","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/sew.2024.a919139","url":null,"abstract":"<span><span>In lieu of</span> an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:</span>\u0000<p> <ul> <li><!-- html_title --> Anachronisms <!-- /html_title --></li> <li> Olivia Nathan (bio) </li> </ul> <h2><em>1</em></h2> <p><strong>T</strong>he night before her history test, T’s legs turned into lightbulbs.</p> <p>Hoot, the family Pomeranian, had been sitting beneath her desk, and T accidentally kicked him as she crossed her legs. In a show of defiance, he left her room and trotted downstairs. T didn’t notice. She forgot the new purplish pimple forming like a grape on her forehead; she forgot the allotted forty minutes of TV she’d been dying to watch; she even forgot to look up at her face smeared in the window beside her desk to contemplate her crush kissing it, though the ache of that longing never left her. As she slipped into bed, each flash card she’d studied after dinner was still moving behind her eyes. Her mind had been consumed by the details of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire. It was as if the fire itself had invaded her mind and left it razed and scorched.</p> <p>Doing better in history was high on T’s list of New Year’s resolutions. It was near the top of a list her parents oversaw, regularly <strong>[End Page 71]</strong> reminding her to practice clarinet every day and to make more lists. They had thwacked the list to the fridge with a magnet that said <small>queen of fucking everything</small> that Queenie, T’s older sister, had left at home when she moved to college. T thought of it as the only remnant of Queenie left in the house. The pink bedroom, which sat empty across from hers, did not recall her sister’s dry and crass sense of humor, nor did the trio of Hello Kitty clocks tocking on her wall.</p> <p>So T had no choice but to get a B+ or A- on the test. Her parents couldn’t understand why she wasn’t already getting B+s or A-s, given T loved the subject.</p> <p>“We don’t understand why you’re not getting B+s or A-s,” they said. “You love history.”</p> <p>This was true. T had spent the month of July on her laptop, watching a lecture series called <em>The History and Mystery of Venetian Watermarks</em> from The Great Courses. (She looked up what water-marks were and then she Googled what Italian iconography meant.) She was quickly consumed by the eight-part lecture series, given by a surprisingly handsome, long-haired professor.</p> <p>Many of the Venetian watermarks looked like horse brandings or ancient family crests; but one, dated as early as 1500, looked like a lightbulb—a watery lightbulb pressed into the middle of the page, crushing the fibers of parchment to allow light to stream through. T had watched the watermark illuminated by candlelight in the reenactment; it shone through where the paper thinned down its curves. How did sixteenth-century Italians know what a lightbulb would look like? There were even undulating lines in the water-mark signifying the metal foot and both sides of the bulb were chubby-cheeked.</p>","PeriodicalId":43824,"journal":{"name":"SEWANEE REVIEW","volume":"25 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-02-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139767487","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-02-08DOI: 10.1353/sew.2024.a919145
Holly Goddard Jones
<span><span>In lieu of</span> an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:</span> <p> <ul> <li><!-- html_title --> Nowhere Spaces <!-- /html_title --></li> <li> Holly Goddard Jones (bio) </li> </ul> <p><strong>O</strong>ver COVID lockdown, my kids and I got into the habit of watching fantasy cartoons each night before bed. One of our favorites was <em>Hilda</em>, a Netflix series inspired by an also-excellent graphic novel series by Luke Pearson. There’s a lot to love about <em>Hilda</em>, which tells the story of the titular character, a little girl who lives a typical modern child’s existence of school and scouts and growing up in a single-parent household—in a reality that happens to be juxtaposed against high-fantasy elements inspired by Scandinavian folklore. Hilda’s universe, and its populous cast of magical characters, is far too ornate to explain here, but as I began contemplating the topic of negative space in fiction, I found myself picturing some creatures from the series, the Nisse. In Pearson’s interpretation, Nisse are house trolls that occupy forgotten areas of the home called “The Nowhere Space”—pocket dimensions, unused and mostly unnoticed by humans, where the Nisse can live, and where they store the items that humans have misplaced or neglected to the point of forfeiture. A Nisse can also <strong>[End Page 130]</strong> use the Nowhere Space to interdimensionally travel—by entering an opening that’s tucked away behind a heavy bookcase, for example, one can exit from underneath a sofa in another house, or in the crack between the refrigerator and wall in still another.</p> <p>It occurs to me that one reason Hilda’s version of the Nisse so compels me is that the Nowhere Space reminds me of one of my most frequent recurring dreams, a dream that I’ve learned is extremely common: the hidden-room dream. In it, you’re home—or, sometimes for me, in a house I just agreed to purchase—and you realize that your house has extra, unused square footage. I can guess what dream interpretation websites would say about the meaning of the hidden room: that you’re plumbing undiscovered aspects of yourself, something about the subconscious, blah blah blah, but what I always feel, in these dreams, is a simultaneous sense of freedom, possibility, and stupidity. I start thinking of all the things I’ll be able to do with this found space, and I start wondering how I could have been so oblivious as to have missed its existence all along.</p> <p>As I have gotten to be an older and more seasoned writer, I’ve experienced a similar set of emotions as I’ve contemplated the extra rooms or Nowhere Spaces within my own prose. I’ve realized just how much of a story gets told off the page. Now, this obviously isn’t some new or surprising insight. We have a whole host of cliches at the ready to address the Nowhere Spaces in literature: we talk about reading “between the lines,” we scrutinize what occurs “in the white space,” and we analyze, as readers, “sub
{"title":"Nowhere Spaces","authors":"Holly Goddard Jones","doi":"10.1353/sew.2024.a919145","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/sew.2024.a919145","url":null,"abstract":"<span><span>In lieu of</span> an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:</span>\u0000<p> <ul> <li><!-- html_title --> Nowhere Spaces <!-- /html_title --></li> <li> Holly Goddard Jones (bio) </li> </ul> <p><strong>O</strong>ver COVID lockdown, my kids and I got into the habit of watching fantasy cartoons each night before bed. One of our favorites was <em>Hilda</em>, a Netflix series inspired by an also-excellent graphic novel series by Luke Pearson. There’s a lot to love about <em>Hilda</em>, which tells the story of the titular character, a little girl who lives a typical modern child’s existence of school and scouts and growing up in a single-parent household—in a reality that happens to be juxtaposed against high-fantasy elements inspired by Scandinavian folklore. Hilda’s universe, and its populous cast of magical characters, is far too ornate to explain here, but as I began contemplating the topic of negative space in fiction, I found myself picturing some creatures from the series, the Nisse. In Pearson’s interpretation, Nisse are house trolls that occupy forgotten areas of the home called “The Nowhere Space”—pocket dimensions, unused and mostly unnoticed by humans, where the Nisse can live, and where they store the items that humans have misplaced or neglected to the point of forfeiture. A Nisse can also <strong>[End Page 130]</strong> use the Nowhere Space to interdimensionally travel—by entering an opening that’s tucked away behind a heavy bookcase, for example, one can exit from underneath a sofa in another house, or in the crack between the refrigerator and wall in still another.</p> <p>It occurs to me that one reason Hilda’s version of the Nisse so compels me is that the Nowhere Space reminds me of one of my most frequent recurring dreams, a dream that I’ve learned is extremely common: the hidden-room dream. In it, you’re home—or, sometimes for me, in a house I just agreed to purchase—and you realize that your house has extra, unused square footage. I can guess what dream interpretation websites would say about the meaning of the hidden room: that you’re plumbing undiscovered aspects of yourself, something about the subconscious, blah blah blah, but what I always feel, in these dreams, is a simultaneous sense of freedom, possibility, and stupidity. I start thinking of all the things I’ll be able to do with this found space, and I start wondering how I could have been so oblivious as to have missed its existence all along.</p> <p>As I have gotten to be an older and more seasoned writer, I’ve experienced a similar set of emotions as I’ve contemplated the extra rooms or Nowhere Spaces within my own prose. I’ve realized just how much of a story gets told off the page. Now, this obviously isn’t some new or surprising insight. We have a whole host of cliches at the ready to address the Nowhere Spaces in literature: we talk about reading “between the lines,” we scrutinize what occurs “in the white space,” and we analyze, as readers, “sub","PeriodicalId":43824,"journal":{"name":"SEWANEE REVIEW","volume":"6 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-02-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139767507","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-02-08DOI: 10.1353/sew.2024.a919141
Madeline Cash
<span><span>In lieu of</span> an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:</span> <p> <ul> <li><!-- html_title --> First Wife <!-- /html_title --></li> <li> Madeline Cash (bio) </li> </ul> <p><strong>B</strong>ud took four Seconal, masturbated into a tea towel, and decided to drive the Subaru into the sea. The passenger seat was piled with empty take-out containers. Looking over the discarded items, Bud felt like one himself. He caught a glimpse of his reflection in the rearview mirror, the face of a man who hadn’t been cool for several presidential administrations. Who had contemplated but ultimately rejected three different ironic tattoos, and who, having nothing left to lose, was free—free according to the logic of Descartes, or was it Janis Joplin, he couldn’t remember.</p> <p>Bud didn’t like talk radio. It felt like eavesdropping on someone’s conversation. He did not care for esoteric polemics on gender or local politics or dog breeding. Although, admittedly, he did enjoy those true-crime specials about women in peril and falsely accused teenagers serving life sentences. When told well, thought Bud, a good story is like good cocaine; it has you eager for the next line. He briefly searched for a station that played the classics. What he really wanted to hear was a song that went like <em>blinded by the light</em>, <strong>[End Page 95]</strong> <em>something something something in the middle of the night</em>. But, despite his forceful prodding at the touch screen, he could not access the car’s Bluetooth.</p> <p>“Hit <em>pair with device</em>.” The sitter, Hannah <em>Something</em>, was at the window. In the haze of barbiturates, Bud could not remember her name.</p> <p>“You snuck up on me,” said Bud.</p> <p>“I’ve been standing here for, like, a minute and a half,” said Hannah Something.</p> <p>“Can I help you?”</p> <p>“Mrs. Casey said you’d drive me home.”</p> <p>Hannah thought Bud Casey had an ineffable charisma. He was the kind of dad who might take you to rock concerts instead of ball games, who might look the other way when you pilfer a beer because he’d rather you do it in the house. She found him charming, rugged, perhaps a little dangerous. Bud did not share this opinion of Hannah. He much preferred the other sitter, Fiona Rappaport, who possessed the effortless beauty of an off-duty runway model, while Hannah was perennially covered in a layer of adolescent grease. Whenever he dropped off Fiona, Bud took the longer route to her house, pointing out some architectural feature or other, his breath mingling with Fiona’s in the confined space. Bud also did not care for Hannah Something at this moment because she was preventing him from driving into the sea.</p> <p>Hannah tossed most of the take-out containers into the back-seat and then drummed her fingers on the dash. What should they talk about? His child, that was a subject of inexhaustible interest. So inquisitive, always asking things like, <em>Where’s my dad? Why isn’t Dad sl
{"title":"First Wife","authors":"Madeline Cash","doi":"10.1353/sew.2024.a919141","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/sew.2024.a919141","url":null,"abstract":"<span><span>In lieu of</span> an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:</span>\u0000<p> <ul> <li><!-- html_title --> First Wife <!-- /html_title --></li> <li> Madeline Cash (bio) </li> </ul> <p><strong>B</strong>ud took four Seconal, masturbated into a tea towel, and decided to drive the Subaru into the sea. The passenger seat was piled with empty take-out containers. Looking over the discarded items, Bud felt like one himself. He caught a glimpse of his reflection in the rearview mirror, the face of a man who hadn’t been cool for several presidential administrations. Who had contemplated but ultimately rejected three different ironic tattoos, and who, having nothing left to lose, was free—free according to the logic of Descartes, or was it Janis Joplin, he couldn’t remember.</p> <p>Bud didn’t like talk radio. It felt like eavesdropping on someone’s conversation. He did not care for esoteric polemics on gender or local politics or dog breeding. Although, admittedly, he did enjoy those true-crime specials about women in peril and falsely accused teenagers serving life sentences. When told well, thought Bud, a good story is like good cocaine; it has you eager for the next line. He briefly searched for a station that played the classics. What he really wanted to hear was a song that went like <em>blinded by the light</em>, <strong>[End Page 95]</strong> <em>something something something in the middle of the night</em>. But, despite his forceful prodding at the touch screen, he could not access the car’s Bluetooth.</p> <p>“Hit <em>pair with device</em>.” The sitter, Hannah <em>Something</em>, was at the window. In the haze of barbiturates, Bud could not remember her name.</p> <p>“You snuck up on me,” said Bud.</p> <p>“I’ve been standing here for, like, a minute and a half,” said Hannah Something.</p> <p>“Can I help you?”</p> <p>“Mrs. Casey said you’d drive me home.”</p> <p>Hannah thought Bud Casey had an ineffable charisma. He was the kind of dad who might take you to rock concerts instead of ball games, who might look the other way when you pilfer a beer because he’d rather you do it in the house. She found him charming, rugged, perhaps a little dangerous. Bud did not share this opinion of Hannah. He much preferred the other sitter, Fiona Rappaport, who possessed the effortless beauty of an off-duty runway model, while Hannah was perennially covered in a layer of adolescent grease. Whenever he dropped off Fiona, Bud took the longer route to her house, pointing out some architectural feature or other, his breath mingling with Fiona’s in the confined space. Bud also did not care for Hannah Something at this moment because she was preventing him from driving into the sea.</p> <p>Hannah tossed most of the take-out containers into the back-seat and then drummed her fingers on the dash. What should they talk about? His child, that was a subject of inexhaustible interest. So inquisitive, always asking things like, <em>Where’s my dad? Why isn’t Dad sl","PeriodicalId":43824,"journal":{"name":"SEWANEE REVIEW","volume":"7 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-02-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139773497","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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