Three Stories

“I’ve told them the stories of their births many times, but at some point something shifted; they began to insist on making me the hero of these tales, rather than them. Now what they want to hear is how hard I needed to work to push them out, how I refused any pain medication because I wanted to be able to stand and walk and writhe however necessary to help them through the birth passage. They want to hear, again, how great the pain was that I had prevailed over—can I describe it? To what can it be compared? What they like, it seems to me, is to hear what an act of terrible strength it took to push them into the world, and that I, their mother, was capable of it. Or maybe what they want is to celebrate, again, the old and fading order of things, where they are not called on to protect, but are themselves watched over and protected.”

—Nicole Krauss, “To Be a Man” in The Atlantic

“Another admirer. How their ranks swelled. They could erect a monument to her in the town square. An extremely fucking likeable woman — that’s what the plaque could say.”

—Erin Somers, “Ten Year Affair” in Joyland

“No sign of him. This is not living, she thought. Waiting for a solution that never comes is not living. I know he’s getting tired of me. Why doesn’t he come? It doesn’t even matter if he doesn’t love me. As long as he’s here.”

—Pauline Melville, “Anna Karenina and Madame Bovary Discuss Their Suicides” in Electric Lit