An unusual story about a tragedy and its aftermath by David Gilbert

David Gilbert's story, fungus, is the third and final piece in the New Yorker summer reading double issue ( what does it mean that two of the three are set in Portland Oregon?), and it fits loosely w the parenting theme of the issue. This story is about a young father whose wife and older daughter have recently died in a car crash ( we learn nothing about them aside from this salient fact) who is trying to keep his life in order as he raises their six-year old daughter and fends off well-meaning condolences and solace from his friends. The central event is their purchase of a car to replace the one involved in the fatal accident. At some points this is a heartbreaking story as we see the protagonist trying to ease his daughter's pain in sometimes strange ways such as letting roam at will in the car lot to pick out their next car no questions asked. The story also delves into the spirals of the man's thoughts as he obsesses on numerous topics but avoids thinking about the central issue in his life. Gilbert writes w that sharp urbane wit we associate w the Brooklyn writers and draws on a store of arcana: the protagonist has lots of thoughts about the indie rock. Suicide of his 90s youth (all of which was obscure to me) as well as lots of literary and cinematic references (Roethke, Slinger, Antonioni) probably not obscure to most readers; there is a hint that the protagonist may be a writing prof but that is only adumbrated. In fact the entire story is remarkable in being one of the few that have a potentially dramatic back story that is never developed - the whole narrative is in the present and we have only hints to and glimpses of anything preceding the nominal events in the foreground of the narrative;'the protagonist's interior life is developed but he pointedly refuses to reflect on the tragedy in that has changed him forever.