Matthew Groff

(The short story “Different People” by Clare Sestanovich appeared in the January 30^th, 2023 issue of The New Yorker.)

(SPOILERS ahead!)

Illustration by Jillian Tamaki

I have been trying for some time to come up with a good introduction for this piece, but I have decided that the best way to open this is to say that I really, deeply enjoyed reading “Different People” by Clare Sestanovich. So much so that I just want to start talking about it.

This was such a smart, honest, tactile story which allowed me to meet and spend time with three characters. This was a story where I enjoyed the journey it was on, and when the conclusion of the piece arrived, I was completely satisfied with how it all tied together, and ended the way that I knew it had to. This is the type of story that inspires me to write. It’s about people living their lives, and it is so cleverly constructed that the story never feels forced, or artificially fabricated.

The story is about Gilly and her parents, Peter and Lisa, their divorce, how all of them change because of the divorce, and how Gilly begins to see her parents as people. But, it’s also about how one should beware of what they wish for. Or, it might also be about the need for security even as the world shifts under one’s feet. Or it might be about how one has to always grow and learn. Maybe it’s about how people hide in plain sight. Maybe. Maybe not.

This story is divided up into six sections. Each of the sections are paced well, leading to a rise in the action, and then if not ending with a small climax of the section, it concludes with a “button.” And these buttons do a wonderful double duty of enlightening us on the characters in these sections, but also foreshadow upcoming events. Yet, this foreshadowing is so slight and sly that is seamlessly exists with the flow of the story, and doesn’t reek of a plot point.

Also, I so enjoyed the very smart choices that Sestanovich made to develop her theme. I appreciated that the narrator doesn’t dwell often in the internal thoughts of any character, and allows actions to do the telling. Even a simple choice of having the parents referred to by their first names, which never puts the reader in the frame of thinking of these two people as parents first – Peter and Lisa remain adults. Thus, the reader sees the world as Gilly does – observing these two adults and how they react to this situation. All choices made by a writer that understands the craft of storytelling.

I have read this story three, maybe four times now; it’s like a song I like listening to on repeat.  I still find these three characters compelling, and hope the best for them, if that makes sense. It’s also nice to be surprised by a well written story.