Tag: Motherhood

  • Short Story Review: “13.1 Septillion Pounds” by Emily Rinkema

    Short Story Review: “13.1 Septillion Pounds” by Emily Rinkema

    (The short story “13.1 Septillion Pounds” by Emily Rinkema appeared on September 19th, 2025 at Okay Donkey.)

    Image from Okay Donkey

    I like being a dad. Fatherhood has been more rewarding than I imagined. And I will also say that parenting is harder than I thought possible because unforeseen changes seem to happen every three months. Just when I think I got it down, life with the kid takes a right turn. Though me and the wife had plans and best intentions, we learned that we weren’t in control. Reading Emily Rinkema’s cute and humorous “13.1 Septillion Pounds,” I was reminded of all of those emotions, especially when our kid was still a squirmy baby.

    The premise of the story is that two parents go to wake their baby only to find that the child has written math formulas and equations on the walls the night before. The math is accurate, as two mathematicians arrive and verify. I feared this setup was going to lead to a one-note joke; kid does something crazy therefore the parents have a crazy reaction.

    I needn’t have worried.

    What the story is playing on is the unintended consequences of the parents’ well intended actions. Perhaps the Grandma was correct and the child is just gifted, and this situation would have come about inevitably. Or, maybe it was the mobile displaying the galaxy that influenced the baby? Clearly the basketball that the father left in the crib helped the child formulate the weight of Earth. Though I’m not sure I know a parent that would leave a Sharpie in their child’s crib, but hey, I can let that one go. The truth, and the humor for that matter, of this story lies in an honest fear and hope that parents have; they hope their children will do better than them, but fear that in succeeding the child will become someone they won’t understand.

    The conclusion that the parents reach is correct, and one which makes the world right again. It is wholesome, right and honest, all the things that I hope parenting is. Most of the time, I have no idea what I am doing as a father. It’s a scary tough job. But being able to help my kid become who they are is a deep and profound privilege. It’s just a really bumpy ride that loves to make a bunch of turns.

  • Short Story Review: “Marseille” by Ayşegül Savaş

    (The short story “Marseille” by Ayşegül Savaş appeared in the April 7th, 2025 issue of The New Yorker.)

    Illustration by Virginie Morgand

    Old friends are the best friends you can have! There, I said it, and I am willing to die on this completely uncontroversial hill! See, I know that my old friends, some that I have known since grade school, have made my life better, funnier, and have given me perspective in immeasurable ways. Mainly because we have grown older together. Reading “Marseille” by Ayşegül Savaş reminded me of the virtues of having old friends.

    Here’s an Overly Simplistic Synopsis: Amina, who recently had a baby, goes out for a weekend in Marseille with two of her old university friends, Alba and Lisa.

    I try to keep an open mind, and not to jump to conclusions when I start reading a story, but by the time I made it to the third paragraph, and read that this was going to be a story about three old friends going away for a weekend, the cliché and trope sirens started going off in my head. And I can admit that I was totally wrong for doing that. Though, I feel that this “red herring” of a situation was part of Ayşegül Savaş’ plan all along, lulling us in to the story.

    The story’s opening paragraph describes how Amina and her husband have been trying to give each other space and time away from each other, in an attempt to reclaim their lives, “which had been on hold since the baby was born.” So, from the start, the premise of the work is reclaiming one’s self, even after change has occurred. And as we follow Amina and her friends around for these few days, that theme is repeated, in which change is coming, or has already occurred.

    And Ayşegül Savaş handles this theme very smartly. Again, so many times this story could have fallen into the land of middle-aged people tropes, but it never goes there. For one reason, our three characters aren’t that old, perhaps just entering into their thirties. The other way this theme is handled well is that Amina comes into contact with three women, two in the setting of the story and one as a memory, over the stretch of the piece; the first is a new mother on the train out to Marseille, the next is an older woman that explains that desire goes aware after giving birth but will return, the third is a young woman on the ferry ride. It’s as if Amina encounters her present self, her future self, and her past self – these interactions don’t represent warnings of the future, or regrets of the past, but are more like mile posts signaling the changes that happen in life. But what I appreciated most that this was a story about three friends who discover that they have changed by getting older, and still remain friends.

    In the end, “Marseille” is a story about that moment that we all know is coming – that moment when we get the first hint that we aren’t young anymore.