https://www.newyorker.com/books/flash-fiction/the-wife-on-ambien
I love flash fiction stories. Occasionally one seems too short, underdeveloped. But on the whole I like to meet new authors this way. If I like their flash fiction, I will probably like their short stories and novels.
Ed Park has been all over the publishing field in the last twenty years (editor, publisher, teacher, writer). His most recent novel is called SAME BED, DIFFERENT DREAMS. A great title and concept, no?
This flash piece is all about the activity of a wife on Ambien. Ambien (which I take too) is known to induce nocturnal behavior in some that use it. I hope I am not one of them. Nothing seems amiss in the morning anyway. And it's the only way I can sleep.
Hope you all had a good holiday.
7 comments:
Not bad, too much sleep on my part. Hence current weird hours, much as have been over the last year or so. Hope you enjoyed your holiday, too! (You find yourself reading dull novels in your sleep with Ambien, but replace them with no memory of the experience in the mornings.)
I like flash fiction, too, Patti. I enjoy reading it and 'meeting' new authors, and I really enjoy writing it. It lets me stretch myself as a writer.
I have a great story you need to read this week:
"Unmanageable" by Lucia Berlin (from A MANUAL FOR CLEANING WOMEN). A stunning story in four short but powerful pages. A lot of Berlin's fiction was autobiographical at least in part - her years in Santiago, Chile as a teenager, work teaching and as a charge nurse in a hospital, the drinking years she finally overcame, childhood in the Southwest. This is about the drinking. "In the deep, dark night of the soul the liquor stores are bars are closed....She was shaking so badly that she sat down on the floor....If she didn't get a drink she would go into DTs or have a seizure."
Her sons have taken her purse and car keys so she can't drive to get a bottle. She tries anything to calm herself down, maybe get some sugar into herself to stop the shaking. She knows a liquor store will open in two hours. Can she hold out until then? And how can she get there? She scrounges enough change for a small bottle and manages almost desperately to get to the store. An old black man gives her a couple of crackers, and later pours a little wine into her mouth as she is shaking too hard to manage it herself, but it is just enough to get her home.
Wow, what a story. I've been thinking about it since I read it.
Will look for it!
That was brutal!
I will try that flash fiction story and see how I like it. There are links to other flash fiction stories there too, I will try some of those.
If you like readings, here's a (legit) SoundCloud file of "Unmanageable":
Even gives first pub credit!
https://soundcloud.com/readlucia/lucia-berlin-unmanageable
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