The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis
When their marriage was still new, she never felt the need to lock it, and sometimes he would sit on the bathroom floor as she bathed and the two of them would talk about all the minutes and hours they’d spent apart. But after nearly twenty years together, it is as if their quota of words is almost gone and they have to ration them out, sparingly,
... See moreLoree Westron • Missing Words
You have an extraordinary mother, Father often said, as though she was better than all the others. A mother is not a friend, Anouk liked to say, proud of this distinction. What happened to daughters like us? Would we flee our families, wanting to be far away, wishing to carve out a life that was ours alone, far removed from where we came from? Or w
... See moreSanaë Lemoine • The Margot Affair: A Novel
Cheese sweats
I used to think doing stuff like that - hitting myself, slamming things - was cool. Or manly, maybe? I don’t know. Maybe I didn’t think much of it at all besides a vaguely vindicating feeling afterwards like, ‘see, I am fucked up - why else would I do something like that?’
Which makes sense given how little physical proof there is
... See moreOn Christmas Eve, I understood for the first time that his bad mood is an accusation against his father and me. The truth is, he sometimes claims that although Michele has worked for so many years in a bank, he isn’t a businessman, meaning that he wasn’t able to get rich.