New Yorker Fiction 2014

A WRITER'S WIT
Prejudice, which sees what it pleases, cannot see what is plain.
Aubrey de Vere
Born January 10, 1814

Overpopulation?

Because of last week's 2013 presentation, I chose not to profile the January 6 story until today. From now on I will consider one story per week, presented a few days before the cover date, so that readers might locate a copy and read the story if their interests are so piqued. RJ

Grant Cornett

January 6, 2014, Antonya Nelson, “First Husband”: This outing provides a short, or long, few wee hours in the morning, when a middle-aged woman is called upon by her youngest stepdaughter, her favorite, to sit with her three children, while she hunts down her alcoholic husband. ¶ This story seems to have too many characters for the modern reader to keep track of (you expect to do so while reading a novel): an ex-husband, three stepchildren and their spouses, their offspring, in this case two squalling girls and one dutiful boy, whom Lovey, the step grandmother loves more than the others. In their ongoing game of Monotony (Caleb’s renaming of Monopoly), Lovey keeps allowing him to win, even if he is the banker. It may be emblematic of Lovey’s relationship with all of her relatives, all her spouses and lovers: she’s the ultimate "loser," putting everyone’s happiness above her own. ¶ Nelson’s natural milieu seems to be this nexus of modern relationships, who somehow rule each others' lives in a stranglehold of angry love. She understands this tangle (though I hate so many names to keep track of for no apparent reason than to show how many people are in this family) and distills it for us with loving insight. Caleb’s last words of the story, when he discovers that Lovey has been hiding the money she was winning at Monopoly:

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“‘Lovey,’ he said, ‘what happened to your money?’ ¶ ‘What do you mean?’ ¶ His face was suddenly furious, his rage as rare as his laughter, and this time aimed at her. ¶ ‘Don’t let me win,’ he demanded. ‘Don’t you dare let me win!’” (61).

Nelson had three stories published in the magazine in 2012 and none in 2013. She gets 2014 off to a rousing start! Just not so many characters, please! The magazine states that Nelson “will publish Funny Once, her seventh short-story collection, next spring.” Watch for it.
Grant Cornett, Photographer

Quiet Revolution

January 13, 2014, Dinaw Mengestu, “The Paper Revolution”: Two young men enter a university in Kampala, Uganda, in the 1970s, and quietly go about starting or involving themselves in a “revolution.” ¶ The “boys,” Isaac and “Professor Langston,” the narrator, wish to become noticed on campus and devise ways to do so on “paper.” The narrator, at least, has been inspired by a historical writers’ conference that had taken place about a decade earlier. As a result, they “publish” pamphlets (handwritten) with clever sayings, but they don’t have much bearing on the current politics, nor are the two young men influenced much by such politics; they simply wish to forge a future for themselves in their new Africa. Mengestu’s novel All Our Names will be out in 2014.
[The magazine gives no credit for the story’s illustration.]

TUESDAY: MY BOOK WORLD

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