Tag: Short Story Writer

  • Short Story Review: “Nondisclosure Agreement” by Said Sayrafiezadeh

    (The short story “Nondisclosure Agreement” by Said Sayrafiezadeh appeared in the May 9th, 2022 issue of The New Yorker.)

    (I see dead people and SPOILERS ahead!)

    (Note: This review was updated on 5/8/22)

    I don’t like being a grownup; it sucks. I’m not saying that I want to be a kid, because that also sucked. What I am saying is that adulthood is not all that it’s cracked up to be. The narrator in Said Sayrafiezadeh’s story “Nondisclosure Agreement” seems to be discovering this as well.

    The narrator is a relatively recent grad school graduate in literature, who misses being in school, and has been finding dissatisfaction in post grad school life by meandering through a string a meaningless low paying service jobs. That is until he lands a position doing data entry at a mail-order catalog company. From the get-go, the story lets you know that this job does not work out, though the narrator is offered double the salary than he was expecting. The narrator enjoys his large paycheck, and gets a larger apartment, a new car, and better clothes. Then one day the narrator and his boss have a moment where they discover that they both have a love of poetry and literature. Turns out the boss originaly wanted to publish a lit journal, but his bankrolling parents wouldn’t allow it, so the boss was forced to create the mail-order catalog company. The narrator suggests to his boss that he should read his work, including his grad thesis. The boss loves the work and decides to publish them, which starts a process of editing and reediting with no end in sight, as the boss keeps moving the publication date off further and further into the future.

    I started off liking this story, and then I just became confused by it. The story felt like it couldn’t decide what style or form it should take, like it was at odds with itself. From the beginning, the story seems rooted in realism. Yet, these slightly Kafka-esk elements are dropped in, like how the narrator is the only full-time employee, doing data entry for a company in a dying industry, the never-ending edits, the delaying of publication, and how money just comes out of nowhere.

    Then there is the narrator. For the hero of the story, he does nothing heroic. He just puts up with everything. The character is shallow, selfish, and gullible when someone shows the slightest interest in his work. I don’t think those are disqualifying traits to have for the main character, but the character still has to confront something, or at least make a choice. Unfortunately, the narrator makes no choices, which leaves the story feeling unfulfilled.

    Which brings me to my final point, as this story executes a trick that I have been seeing in several other short stories of late; the foreshadowing of a climax that never materializes. (I’m sure there is a succinct one-word term for this that I am not aware of, most likely in German.) It works like this; the story tells us from the beginning how it will end, then the reader is reminded two more times in the story how it will end. When the ending of the story arrives (and it’s an ending not a climax) it’s not the ending that was foreshadowed, but a different one, but it should lead to the foreshadowed ending. It’s a literary bait and switch, as in the climax doesn’t happen in the story, but sometime after the story ends. We are told there will be a lawsuit between the boss and the narrator, and we are also told the boss is crazy. The lawsuit is meant to function as the climax, and the craziness of the boss, which is his inability to publish the journal, is never given any evidence as to why he would behave this way. Yet, the story is being presented in such a manner that the reader needs to accept these two criteria for the story to reach its conclusion. Sadly, this trick doesn’t work.

    What we are presented with is a story and a narrator who straddling between the two worlds of child and adulthood. Both worlds may suck, but inevitably, you have to make a choice to live in one. Maybe that was the point of “Nondisclosure Agreement,” but it’s not clear, because no one made a decision.

    (Say, don’t forget to like this post, or share it, or leave a comment. I got bills to pay, you know.)

  • Short Story Review: “The Repugnant Conclusion” by Elif Batuman

    (The short story “The Repugnant Conclusion” by Elif Batuman appeared in the April 25th & May 2nd issue of The New Yorker.)

    Kierkegaard!

    It’s just fun to say it! Kierkegaard!

    I know he was Danish, but I like to say his name in a heavy German accent, like I’m acknowledging a rival has bested me.

    Kierkegaard!

    Personally, I like any short story that openly tackles anything philosophical. (Bonus points if you mention KIERKEGAARD!) “The Repugnant Conclusion,” by Elif Batuman, is such a story. The piece revolves around three friends who are sophomores at Harvard; Selin (the narrator), Svetlana, and Lakshmi. Summer vacation is over and they are all returning back to school, and they do what college kids do; they study, they talk, they think about sex, they have sex, they think about life in and out of school, and try to take what they are learning and use it, or at least discuss it. But they are not the old “normal” Ivy League college kids. They are Turkish, Russian and Indian respectively. It is a factor in their experience at college, and how they will go forth in the world when they leave. They are aware also of their Americanness, as well. All factors that weigh on them.

    I enjoyed how this story introduced me to characters I had not experienced before, and I also enjoyed how they reminded me of my college experience with my friends. I found the story truthful in the perspectives each character had. Nothing seemed forced or put on. Yet, I knew full well that each character was staking a different philosophical position in a narrative structure. (Kierkegaard!) It’s a trick, and one that if played wrong could come across as heavy handed and shallow. I thought Batuman hit the right note. Maybe these characters will be like this for the rest of their lives, maybe it’s a phase, maybe they will evolve into something else. Maybe it’s just sophomore year.

    And maybe it’s just life.

    (Say, don’t forget to like this post, or share it, or leave a comment. I got bills to pay, you know.)

  • Short Story Review: “Just a Little Fever” by Sheila Heti

    (The short story “Just a Little Fever” by Sheila Heti appeared in the April 18th, 2022 issue of The New Yorker.)

    How’s that line go? “Youth is wasted on the young.” I’m sure when George Bernard Shaw said it in his Irish accent, it sound sounded profound, and very witty. I know it was meant as an insult to young people, and just about every time I have heard it said, especially toward me, it has been used as a shorthand to say that I am acting irrationally and stupid. But as I have gotten older, I find the line has more regret and melancholy in it, not toward the young, but for the older person saying it.

    “Just a Little Fever” by Sheila Heti is a sweet, and charming story that grabbed me from the beginning. We meet Angela, who is youthful, and shampooing cherries into her hair, not because it was suggested to her by a friend or an article, but just because she thought of it, and wanted to try it. With her hair smelling of cherries, so goes to work as a bank teller and meets the well-dressed but older gentleman Thomas, who comes up to her window. They have a short but honest conversation, and Angela finds herself still thinking about Thomas. Angela decides to look up Thomas’ phone number from his account, and asks him out to dinner. After a little first date awkwardness, they continue to see each other, and enter into a relationship. Clearly, more happens, but I don’t want to spoil it.

    Like I said, I found myself enjoying the story from the start, but what really endeared me to it was how Heti kept layering, or maybe reveling is the better word, the deep truths and inner workings to Angela’s character. It resonated with me how Angela viewed being around people her own age, and how Thomas made her feel calm, and in the moment. How Angela had to question and test her feelings with Thomas, and how she began to see that people in her life might not be the healthiest people for her. I don’t think Heti ever overtly said that Angela was happy with Thomas, but there was that feeling coming out of the text, indescribable but apparent. When the final section started, leading to the climax and resolution, I dreaded reading it, because, not that I knew what was coming, but because what was coming was authentic to who Angela was.

    Yes, the ending frustrated me, but in the very best possible way. I found myself caring, very strongly, for these two characters. And though my experience was not exactly the same as Angela and Thomas, but I had a moment with someone once, where I was very happy to be in the middle with them. But, I too was young, and wasted my youth.

  • Rejection

    Tuesday morning is when I go grocery shopping for my family. This chore takes me out of Harlem and to the 93rd Street Trader Joe’s, which means if I do this right, it will take me an hour to do. I listen to music, and read on the subway. It’s personal time for me, so I try to keep it to enjoying things that make me feel better.

    I read on the subway trip down, and had a nice stroll through the UWS to get to the store. Shopping was fine, not too many people. When I got to checking out, I was going to use my phone to tap and pay, when I saw on my screen that I had got an email from a magazine I had submitted a story to.

    Curiosity got the better of me, and I opened the email, knowing that I already knew what the response was going to be, but I still wanted to see it. They were rejecting my story. Like I said, I had a feeling a knew what the response would be. But, clearly I must have looked disappointed, as the woman ringing me up asked, “You okay?”

    I guess I did get my hopes up.

    Even though I told myself not to. Funny how even though I prepare myself for this, I still set myself up. Oh well. I have to come to love every step of the process, even the ugly soul crushing parts.

    I was a theatre major in college, and I had a professor who would say that to us, that you had to enjoy all the steps in the process of becoming a professional, which, according to him, is the only way you will be able to survive the ups and downs of a career in the arts.

    I always thought that advice was bullshit. Who the hell likes being rejected?

    No one likes being rejected.

    But I can see his point. To get accepted, you got to put yourself out there. The more you can enjoy getting out there, the less the rejection stings.

    Well, four down, one more to go, and that will complete my first round of submissions. Then I have to go find another set of magazines to submit to.

    Process keeps on going.

  • Short Story Review: “The Complete” by Gabriel Smith

    (The short story “The Complete,” by Gabriel Smith appeared in Issue 6, of The Drift.)

    At the start of the pandemic, my wife was on one of those huge group chats with her friends, all attempting to use Zoom, and recreate some sense of normal human connection. This was probably April or May 2020. Most of my wife’s friends are in the creative fields; writers, actors, directors, poets. My wife told me later, that on one of those early calls, they all started discussing how they thought the pandemic was going to be portrayed in movies, TV, theatre, novels, and so on. Some thought it would usher in a new version of hyper-realism, another group thought it would be treated how 9/11 was. I don’t know, but since those early days, it feels like every couple of months, someone writes something asking, “How will the story of COVID be told?”

    Gabriel Smith’s story, “The Complete,” is the first work of fiction I have read that has tried to take a crack at it. I don’t think I could give a quick summary, or even a long one, for this story. It takes place in London, sort of. It’s about a writer, kind of. And COVID is happening. While the story doesn’t have a formal plot, it does have atmosphere, mood, and an almost tangible ethereal presence. Oh, and a real good sense of humor.

    Two main things struck me with the story. First, I felt like someone captured what my brain went through during the dark days of the pandemic. How my imagination would wander and drift, break things apart and put them back together. I had so much time to think about everything that had ever happened to me, and way too much time to think about the end of the world. Second, the whole piece worked in this wonderful staccato rhythm, with each section of the story coming in, then cutting to another part, then another cut. This method of storytelling wasn’t new to me, I have read other attempts of this style, and I was aware that at some point all of these tangents would tie together. But the fun wasn’t waiting to see if it came together; The fun was watching how it came together. Because I can see how someone might complain that this story is all style and no substance, yet I would argue, strongly, that the substance, the weight of this story, was in the style which captured a still undefinable time.