A ten -year old walks a five- year old to school every day. The way there is calm but on the way back, the ten-year old tell the kindergartner scary stories. The younger one screams and cries when the story is told. It's a game, but it isn't. One day, she isn't there in the morning and the ten-year old is told the younger one is now going to public school. She is grief stricken. Translated from the French. Perhaps that's why I didn't get it. Or maybe it's a religious thing (they are Catholic). But why did the kindergartner go along with it? Why did the older child derive satisfaction from the game? Just not enough information for me.
8 comments:
I agree. Do not care for stories like this one. I finished James Salter's first collection, DUSK And Other Stones. OK, but I preferred his later LAST NIGHT, which I read first.
Currently reading the Andrew Sean Greer collection, and will start the new Ed Hoch collection that arrived a few days ago.
That story does not sound like one I would enjoy. It does remind me that I need to take advantage of my digital subscription to the New Yorker to read new stories more regularly.
I will have to take a look...but suspect it's a study in fond sadism, with the older child a bit adrift without the ritual.
I have found it's accessible w/o subscribing...will read it later today. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2026/06/08/stories-fiction-annie-ernaux
Having read it, it still gives me that vibe. I had some extraordinarily nasty sitters usually high-school girls, when I was 6yo, just before my sister was born...flexing their power over me in the rudest ways. Dunno if that was exacerbated by the 1970 Boston suburbs geist or not so much.
My kids had a babysitter that was similarly sadistic. Now she's a nurse. Tracy, there is a whole fiction issue on June 8.
I'll try to get a post ready for next Wednesday.
I am checking the issue out now, Patti. Thanks for pointing that out. The cover of the magazine is striking. "Firstborn Immigrant Daughter" by Taiye Selasi looks good.
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