Welcome

A daily record of what I'm thinking about what I'm reading

To read about movies and TV shows I'm watching, visit my other blog: Elliot's Watching

Tuesday, December 24, 2013

A totally unconventional Xmas miracle in current New Yorker - Rebecca Curtis's story

A totally surprising and nonconventional story with the completely misleading title The Christmas Miracle, by Rebecca Curtis, an author new to me and worth watching. This could more accurately be called the dysfunctional Christmas miracle - Curtis's story, narrated by a seriously disturbed 30-something in the form of a letter or address to her, I think, boyfriend, K, tells of her family gathering seemingly somewhere in the (Canadian?) Rockies and the odd behavior of many family members, most notably the writer (D, I think is how she ID's herself) - to give you just a slight idea the beloved uncle retired asset-manager is a known pedophile who's constantly trying to peek at or touch the young nieces, the mother - narrator's sister - is trying to be sensitive to everyone's feelings, including the pedo-uncle; the narrator takes control of this and tries to teach her nieces to say stuff like "I don't feel kissy right now." This sounds, I know, like a dark sort of problem or issue story, but it's all seen through the very distorted lens of this odd narrator who claims to be suffering from various food intolerances plus Lyme disease - so who knows how much of what she tells us is accurate? (As she notes in an aside to K, she realizes she probably shouldn't include pedophilia in this narrative, as readers will think that's what the whole story's about - which it isn't.) At times narrator sees the many assembled guests as various wild animals; at other times she gives herself two lines of dialogue, one from the "nice" or sane "me" and the other from some of the chemicals in her brain - and it's never entirely clear which line was actually spoken - at least until a very bizarre predinner gathering at which she says some really horrendous things to an in-law who's hoping to get pregnant - and the narrator wants to help through various dietary supplements (even though her degree is from the Internet, as she confesses). The story is as offbeat and odd as some of George Saunders's work, though much more female-centric - the two of them make a good pair, however - and are strongly in the outside oddball tradition of American short fiction.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.