New Yorker Fiction 2014

A WRITER'S WIT
It was painful, but sometimes you must have these painful moments where you tear yourself away from something that isn't working.
Jeffrey Eugenides
Born March 8, 1960

The More Sheltered Woman?

Gracia Lam

March 10, 2014, Yiyun Li, “A Sheltered Woman”: Auntie Mae, a Chinese immigrant who works as a baby nurse in San Francisco, must decide if she wishes to continue her work or move onto something else. ¶ The use of internal monologue seems to enhance this story. If we didn’t know some of Auntie Mae’s thoughts, we wouldn’t know her very well. Would we know, for example, that she’s worked for eleven years as a baby nurse? ¶ The woman seems to have two personalities, one a rather mystical one that sees a statue of an egret fly away, but she’s also a woman who believes in strict routines for the beginning of a baby’s life. She talks to her late husband as if he were still around, yet she grounds  herself in her work, sort of befriending a plumber her age, yet not really trusting him. ¶ Li asks much of the reader. To be patient in seeing the story develop. She asks us to forget that we never know how her husband died. We don’t know how Auntie Mae spends her money, keeping it a secret from all of us, as well as her new friend, Paul. ¶ The story is reminiscent, in tone, of Katherine Anne Porter’s “The Jilting of Granny Weatherall,” but while it mimics its tone, its mysteries, Li’s story does not seem to achieve the same depth. Maybe, however, in fifty years, high school students will be studying Li’s “A Sheltered Woman” for its mysteries, unpacking its gems during AP exams in which they must decide who is the more sheltered woman, Auntie Mae or the mother she is helping. Li’s Kinder Than Solitude was published recently.
Gracia Lam, Illustrator

TUESDAY: MY BOOK WORLD

---