Curtis Sittenfeld likes to write stories and novels that intersect with real people-celebrities that is-- and she is often good at it. In "The Richest Babysitter in the World" from SHOW DON'T TELL, a college student is hired by a couple to care for their young child in the hours that the wife is working on her dissertation. Very little happens in this story although the writing is lucid and we find out by the end that the couple are stand ins for the Bezos. Although I liked the story, I did not find any compelling reason to write it-unless perhaps Sittenfeld did babysit for the Bezos'. There is a brief examination of the problems of using a service like Amazon-and the realization that in society today it is hard not to. Also an examination of how he treats his employees as contrasted to how they treated her. (Bezos' wife is a philanthropist and you can see that tendency in how she treats the babysitter compared to him) I don't mind stories where nothing happens, but this took that pretty far. The story originally appeared in THE ATLANTIC.
11 comments:
I liked her two story collections, and I went back and read her early novel (PREP) that she followed up in a new story.
I finished the second Lauren Groff collection, FLORIDA, and as I said last time, I found it darker than the first one. I'd recommend spacing out the stories.
I have read a few of her novels and liked them, especially the one about Laura Bush.
When she was a kid in Cincinnati, she applied for and got a scholarship to the tony Groton School in Massachusetts. PREP is clearly a novelized version of her four years there.
Anthologies I propose make up my post today: https://socialistjazz.blogspot.com/2025/06/two-proposed-anthologies-we-are-in.html
I will also recommend Rich Horton's review of a collection by Helen DeWitt, SOME TRICK: https://rrhorton.blogspot.com/2025/06/review-some-trick-by-helen-dewitt.html
That mix of real-life and fictional (or at least semi-fictional) people can be interesting, Patti. And it does make you wonder what it must be like to know people like the Bezos.
So, this one was mostly about noting the power dynamics, between the Bezos and how both treat others? That can drive a meditative story...also, what all this does to those children who are being sat...
Mine's up now, Patti: B. M. Bower's "The White Horse of Drowning Ford."
Interesting story; I guess I will have to get a copy of that book sometime. I have YOU THINK IT, I'LL SAY IT by Sittenfeld, but I have to figure out where I stashed it.
And now, based on Jeff's comment here, I want to find a copy of PREP.
I sometimes don't like stories with real people in them. I am currently reading the very long novella in TABLE FOR TWO by Amor Towles, and it has (at least) two real persons in it, and I cannot decide whether I like that or not. Up to that point I was liking the story.
And one which fell between switches was Frank Babics's review of PAINGOD AND OTHER DELUSIONS by Harlan Ellison: https://casualdebris.blogspot.com/2025/05/harlan-ellison-paingod-and-other.html (I am still in need of sleep, but there are trash cans to retrieve, dishes to wash, and a cat to betray through a vet visit...the other cat next Thursday,)
Yes, that was the thrust of it-and how it reflected their eventual lives.
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