Author: Matthew Groff

  • Short Story Review: “Upstate” by Emma Cline

    (The short story “Upstate” by Emma Cline appeared in the October 30th, 2023 issue of The New Yorker.)

    (Yes, my dear, there will be SPOILERS.)

    Illustration by Dennis Eriksson

    “If God didn’t exist, it would be necessary to invent him,” was the first quote that came to my mind when I read this story. Maybe “Upstate” by Emma Cline doesn’t exactly share the same sentiment as the aforementioned quote from Voltaire, but the short story swims in the themes of sin, punishment, and atonement. The other quote that came to my mind was, “These pretzels are making me thirsty!”

    Yeah, just let me explain…

    “Upstate” is a story about a couple, Kate and Paul, getting away for the weekend (Sunday to Monday) in a small town/country rental house. The piece is told from Kate’s perspective, but the first character introduced is Djuna, the owner of the rental property, and her slew of rules for renting the house. Though Kate found the place, Paul is paying for it, and this is the first example of how Paul takes care of Kate. As the story tells us, Paul is a much older man to Kate’s youth, and they had participated in a hidden affair for some time. But now that Paul is divorced, their relationship is living in the open. As the weekend unfolds, we are privy to Kate’s thoughts on the state of her relationship with Paul, which clearly she has started to question by wondering if they are truly being open and honest with each other. An accident happens, which leaves Kate and Paul’s relationship in a different iteration.

    I appreciate that Cline takes on the idea of morality without ever having to say God, though Djuna is God adjacent for this story. Djuna owns the rental house, and her rules are made explicit, though Paul and Kate ignore them from the moment they arrive by looking in a closet they are told not to open. (In fact, apples are eaten at one point.) Their next transgression is a stain they leave on the livingroom carpet after the couple has sex. Kate attempts to remove the stain, but in the end, it never fully goes away. Kate starts taking on a fear of Djuan, a fear of being caught, or even accused of breaking the house rules. Such as when Paul has his accident in the house, Kate demurs when Djuan calls demanding to know why the lights were left on, and the doors were open – Kate takes Djuan’s verbal punishment. The feeling is that outside of this rental house, Kate and Paul had lived punishment free in the sin of their affair. But in this house, there is a power that comes down on them, which manifests in Kate’s fear. That I found very interesting.

    Yet, there was formulaic aspect to this story that I couldn’t shake, and that stopped me from being invested in this story. Cline’s prose is efficient and very spartan; truly reducing down to the barest elements. At its most basic, this is a story about a couple going on vacation, and realizing that they aren’t right for each other, or at least questioning if they are right for each other. This is territory that has been trodden many times before, which made me desire for the story to get to the next part. And though there was a sly bit of foreshadowing, I found myself waiting for the relationship changing climax to arrive.

    And when it did arrive, that’s why I thought of the other quote, “These pretzels are making me thirsty!”

    For those of you that aren’t dedicated Seinfeld fans, the quote comes from the episode “The Alternate Side.” (I will admit that the quote has nothing to do with the story, but is possibly the most famous part of the episode.) Anyway, Elaine’s subplot in the storyline is that she is dating an older man, who at first she finds very interesting, but soon wants to break up with him. Before she can do that, he has a stoke, rendering him incapacitated, leaving Elaine as his caregiver.

    Maybe not 100% the same, but it is similar enough for me to equate the two. Seinfeld was supposed to be about “nothing” and “no lessons” – a selfish place without a moral compass. “Upstate” was about a world that needs morality, and if it is absent, people in that world will create it. Like I said, it’s an interesting idea, that happens to be transported in a clichéd car.

  • Baseball Reflection

    Sometimes, I can make the mistake of not thinking things through; Such as last night when I stayed up late watching the ALCS. (And that would make two nights in a row that I have stayed up late, and not gone to bed. Yes, I am suffering for it today, thank you.) The reason was simple – The Rangers were playing the Astros, it was game seven of the American League Championship, and I also knew a great number of friends and family were watching the game. See, I grew up in Arlington, TX where the Rangers play, and there is an amount of hometown loyalty to the team. I’m not as rabid as some of my friends, but I thought it best to check it out.

    It was a good game if you were a Rangers fan, as Texas pretty much blew out Houston – just stomped them as the final was 11 – 4. But being that I was partial to the Rangers, I had a good time following along. Truth be told, what sealed the Astro’s fate was Ted Cruz, and if there is one person who can ruin anything, it’s Ted Cruz…

    The baseball team that I follow, and pretty much my family does as well, are the Chicago Cubs. My family is from the Chicago area, so its baked into our identity. Also, my maternal grandfather was a diehard Cubs fan, and when we’d visit him in the summers, he’s watch afternoon games called by Harry Carry and Steve Stone on WGN. 2016 was one of the greatest years of my life because that’s when the Cubs broke the curse and won the whole thing. Yes, I had tears of joy on that night, and thought about so many family members who had passed on never having seen the Cubs win it all, including my grandfather.

    And to be honest, baseball has never felt the same to me after the Cubs won the World Series in ’16. I followed that team the whole year – Spring Training to game seven in Cleveland. I watched as many games as I could, followed the team on the MLB app, and even on their IG account. I was invested that year. I didn’t really believe they would win it, as I had my heart broken in ’84, and ’89, and ’98, and ’03 with “five more outs to go,” and ’04, and ’07 and ‘08… You get use to it after a while, you know. But I still had hope.

    So, it was fun last night, watching a baseball game again, with something big on the line. There were flashbacks of the pain that believing in a team can cause you. There also was the excitement of watching a team go out there and have fun.

    Maybe I’ll watch the World Series… I don’t know…

  • I Can’t Say No to a Bad Movie

    Yesterday was a trying night in our apartment. The kid had issues sleeping, but even before that, I think we all ate too much sugar and were hyper beyond our expectations. I’m not kidding when I say this, as we made homemade cinnamon rolls with real icing in the morning, and that sugar rush made us jittery all day.

    I have been trying to make an effort, really trying, to get to bed at decent hour, and earn a good night’s sleep. It doesn’t always work, as my success rate for getting to bed in time for seven hours of sleep is like 5% on a given night. What is keeping me up is my desire to discover the worst movie I can find? Amazon Prime is a goldmine of schlock, but not a limitless resource; I fear I might be approaching the bottom of this well rather soon.

    And I should have gone to bed, I admit that, but this wouldn’t be a story if I did, right?

    I thought the best thing I could do last night, right before I went to bed was to check and see if Rob Hill had posted anything new on his Bad Movie Bible YouTube page…

    What I found was, “A Top 10 Best Worst Heavy Metal Horror Movies,” a subject matter very close to my heart.

    I have a particular fondness for this specific sub-genre of horror movies, as one of my favorite awful heavy metal horror movies is Rocktober Blood. (It used to be up on YouTube, but seems to have gone missing now. SHUDDER claims to have it, but you need to subscribe to be able to watch it.) There are a couple of songs in the movie that aren’t good, but are entertaining, especially “Killer on the Loose.”

    Though Rocktober Blood didn’t make Hill’s list, it does get a mention in the video, which I take as a sort of victory for the film. A film that has brought me many hours of entertainment.

    In the end, I stayed up too late again.

  • ODDS and ENDS: The Rain, Making Breakfast, Coffee, and Tottenham

    (Don’t go breakin’ my heart…)

    I don’t know how things are where you live, but up here in New York, I think we are in the sixth weekend where it rains, especially on Saturdays. Don’t get me wrong, sometimes it’s nice to have a cold rain Saturday in Fall, where you can curl up on the couch, read a book, watch a movie, take a nap – you know, do cozy stuff. After six weeks of rainy weekends, I would like to see the sun and go outside and not get wet. In the Summer, sometimes we get in a pattern of five days of sun, then one rainy day, followed five or six days of sun, and the cycle repeats. But rain every weekend feels a bit like a punishment. “Tough week? Working for the weekend?” “Tough shit! You’re Stuck Inside!” On the spectrum of disappointments, six weeks of rainy weekends isn’t that bad. Yet I do wonder if this is some kind of record.

    I know that I am not like most people, and I do have time in the morning. When I was working an office job, mornings were nothing but a rush, and not very pleasant. So now, with the extra time, I have started to try and treat the mornings as a calm start to the day, which includes a breakfast. Not a fruit bar, or frozen waffle, but a meal. Though it is a small meal, it is still a meal. I have noticed a few things after having done this for a month now. First, mornings are calmer for all of us now. Not as frantic, though some mornings getting the kid out the door can be a challenge. Second, with eating breakfast, I find that I don’t snack throughout the day. No mindless eating while working on things. The third thing I noticed about myself is that I feel like I have accomplished something. A while ago, I read that you should make your bed every morning because it will make you feel that you have order at the start of your day, and also that you have accomplished at least one task in your day. Yeah… I never felt like that when I made my bed. But, I do have that feeling after having eaten and fed my family. Just saying…

    I need another cup of coffee.

    Tottenham plays on Monday, which is annoying.

  • Checked That Box

    For those of you that read this blog, and follow me on Twitter/X (all two of you), then you know that I had an announcement yesterday, which was that Rejection Letters published a piece of mine – “Memorably Forgettable.” I have been a fan of this journal for a while, and I really appreciate that they included me in their publication; very cool.

    And as such, I checked off a box on my list of goals for this year – Get One Story Accepted.

    I was prepared to get deep in rejections for this year, as I have received 50 of them so far. I do prescribe to the “100 No’s Before 1 Yes” theory, and as such still feel like there is a lot of rejection out there for me to receive yet. (My Submittable cup runneth over…)

    But, more importantly, I gotta get back to work. I still got a blog to write, a journal to fill up, and a corner in my apartment to sit in and try to make some stories work. And I should be reading more, to be honest.