New Yorker Summer Fiction—Russell

A WRITER'S WIT
To avoid what is common, without adopting what is unnatural, must limit the ambition of the vulgar herd of authors . . . .
Fanny Burney
Born June 13, 1752

Spirit Life in the Mojave

Michael Marcelle

June 9 & 16, 2014, Karen Russell, “The Bad Graft”: Two young people, Angie and Andy, leave Pennsylvania to travel through Joshua Tree National Park in California’s Mojave Desert. ¶ Angie’s body is overtaken by a Joshua tree, and she seems to take on its life.

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“During a season of wild ferment, a kind of atmospheric accident can occur: the extraordinary moisture stored in the mind of a passing animal or hiker can compel the spirit of a Joshua to Leap through its own membranes. The change is metaphysical: the tree’s spirit is absorbed into the migrating consciousness, where it lives on, intertwined with its host” (95).

Using an omniscient third-person point of view, the author Russell weaves the reader in and out of the consciousness of one character to another, including the Joshua tree. Wow. Russell seems to be exploring rumors (news?) that the Joshua tree is headed for extinction. A park ranger has different ideas:

“‘Oh, it’s a hardy species,’ the ranger says. His whiskers are clear tubes that hold the red firelight. ‘Those roots go deep. I wouldn’t count a tree like that out’” (101).

I believe this may be one of the top New Yorker stories of the year, if for nothing else, the sheer joy of its imaginative nature. The next leap for us, as a species, might be to aid in preserving all the Joshua trees of the world. Russell’s novel, Swamplandia! was released in 2011.
Michael Marcelle, Photographer

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