New Yorker story

Credit to the New Yorker for recent efforts to publish authors little known to most readers, which I hope will give recognition and a boost to young writers at the outset of their careers. Current NYer story by Camille Bordas, Tje Presentation on Egypt, as an ambitious, sometimes shocking, mostly successful piece that will hold your attention start to finish. I won't give away any of the shocks or surprises but will only note that the first half of the start had me gasp in surprise at a few of the unexpected twists. Bordas splits her narrative in half with the first section focused on a girl, Danielle, 9 and precocious and preparing for the presentation alluded to in the title - and horrifying events ensue. The 2nd half of the story, somewhat less convincingly, looks at D in later life suffering to degree from her childhood trauma and from the pain of withheld family secrets, whose suppression poison the blood it seems. The 2nd section makes this feel a little too much like a story straining to be a novel - but not quite getting there of course. Still this story is among the more inventive from this magazine, without its being tricky or postmodern. No doubt there will be more to come from this author.

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