Where do our stories come from?

The most secret history

How did your November reading go? Mine’s been derailed by: political doom, family drama (on-theme), holiday celebrations, and editing (my own work mostly). So, TV has been a touch sleepy, but fear not: hello.

Personally, this past month I’ve been reading books that reflect my own atmospheric moodiness. I finally read The God of the Woods by Liz Moore (which I also wrangled into being my book club’s November pick), and that was a great decision inasmuch as it was a bad decision because I kept staying up too late to read another chapter. There really isn’t a better endorsement than that, is there?

I find I’m often drawn to novels with a large cast of characters, and certainly to multi-POV stories (which I probably first realized as a tween reading my mom’s Jodi Picoult books), and The God of the Woods was very much that, with a major mystery and upstairs/downstairs drama to-boot.

The other moody, atmospheric book I’m reading (slowly, ha), is Donna Tartt’s The Secret History. I first read it in grad school — probably one of the only books I read for pleasure during that program — and I was completely ignorant to its cult following. I’d read The Goldfinch on a lark when it came out and thought, hey, I liked that, how about a backlist pick? This is very amusing to think about now — it’s like saying, “Oh, I like sci-fi, what if I watch this Star Wars movie right here?” except for the campus novel/dark academia/literary thrillers/disturbing little coming-of-age stories.

What’s tickling me this time, aside from the infuriatingly gorgeous writing and character sketches, is how I’m not sure if I’ve read or watched anything campus-related in the last thirty years that didn’t include some overt influence from Tartt’s work. Murderous college kids? Anticonformist professor with a devout student following, both of which drive administration mad? Praising the humanities in lieu of “practical” classes? Lower-income outsider joins an eccentric, privileged clique of frenemies? It’s Good Will Hunting, it’s Gossip Girl, it’s everything in between and more.

What a beautiful thing, that is, though, don’t you think? I mean, when we think about the role of the artist in our culture. (Forgive me, I’ve been particularly sentimental about this as of late.) One of the artist’s jobs requires she articulate complex truths and beauties that she sees (or senses) in the world around her. In an ideal world, those truths and beautifies are conveyed so specifically that they begin to feel they are a fact of life in and of themselves. Why else do we keep reading stories about poor kids going to fancy schools? That plot has become a sort of cultural myth, don’t you think? A fable, even, sometimes, intended to carry information and lessons from one generation to the next.

These myths and plots build on each other, becoming the cornerstones of cultural conversations. Each artist who takes up their mantle chooses which pieces to use and which to leave behind in their own work.

In my own work, I find this a terribly relieving state of affairs. The context of art. It is not my job to reinvent storytelling. (Nor is it yours!) Instead, it is about building upon and altering perspective.

Truthfully, I think this was one of the hardest roadblocks for me in writing — all the kinds of writing I have done, from analytical to journalism to fiction etc. — to understand and believe that the Great Works that came before me did not exist in a vacuum; they were not suddenly sprouted from the earth out of nothing. They came from the seeds of the harvest that came before them, if you’ll allow me a cheap metaphor.

I try to tell this to my creative writing students when they lament reading Hawthorne or Cather or Shōnagon early on in the semester. Some of their eyes light up, some of them sigh and rest their heads in their hands, either motion interpretable in several different ways. I hope, at least, some of the pressure eases.

Perhaps, some of our Greatest Works are not special or widely read purely because they are feats of storytelling (although that can definitely apply), but because, ultimately, they are source texts — source texts in their genres, their medium, or even in the way we understand and explain the world around us to each other.

xo,
M

As always, here is a piece from our most recent quarterly — an uncanny short about a child’s birthday party. You can also read it on our website.

By Shayla Frandsen

Gummy-colored candles, fiery on top. No drop-offs here: this was the sort of birthday party parents attended, too. Their loud instructions to their small children, and the small children’s blinks in confused response, made the entire function feel as harried and chaotic as a Friday afternoon traffic jam.

The hot wax of the candles melted like tears, colored splotches dirtying the white frosting. The birthday boy was so young that he wouldn’t remember any of this, the gifts, the attendees, the race car theme. The balloons—he might remember the balloons. So far, the tantrums had been contained to four, only two of which came from the birthday boy himself. A good party. A success.

This was a group of parents with expectations as high as a house mortgage. In the years between their college friendships, marriages, and eventual children, there somehow grew a standard for these parties. The standard was easy to trace: large. Ornate. Expensive. None of the parents could tell you how this standard came about. It just…existed, arriving fully formed the way a fully formed child emerged from the womb and not a zygote.

There was, however, the matter of the stressful pattern which had emerged. The younger the child was, the more elaborate the party thrown for them. Again, nobody had said this outright; instead the fact grew like a fungus. There was absolutely no situation which called for a herd of two-year-olds to be gathered and made to sit obediently around a small table, yet here they were. The cake was sliced and disseminated while two more tantrums were added to the tally, because nobody’s slice was as large as the birthday boy’s and several of the kids had a serious fucking problem with that.

Once the tantrums had been calmed and all cake detritus spirited away, it was time for the piñata. The piñata, lingering like the Hindenburg over the entire morning’s proceedings. A blue googly-eyed donkey. Or maybe a dog? But the tail was too long. Was it supposed to be Eeyore? Some of the parents leveled barely-hidden side-eyes at the host parents. A piñata? Seriously? Ten years ago it might’ve been cute, but now it was just…

What was it? Tacky. A relic of an older time, a time of roller-skating rinks, janky rented bowling shoes, and sticky floors at the movie theater. It gave off a sense of desperation, maybe, all that candy flung around, their children scrabbling on the ground. But whatever. The parents helped corral the herd like sheepdogs guide their flocks, probably in an effort to build up good karma for their own children’s upcoming parties. The kids didn’t know much about piñatas, yet somehow knew that the sight of the blue googly-eyed donkey-dog meant some serious shit was about to go down.

Fifteen minutes later, morale was plummeting. Kids were losing interest and the piñata was unbearably intact. One of the more impatient dads all but yanked the stick out of his daughter’s hand and began slaughtering the piñata, just absolutely attacking it like it was poorly-lit cell phone footage shown at a court hearing.

Gasps rang out, even though everybody secretly thought, good and let’s get this show on the road and about time somebody did it. At least one of the moms watched the dad with the stick and thought I wonder what he’s like in bed.

The piñata, that blue googly-eyed donkey—it was Eeyore, it had to be, because it’d be just like him to take forever to break open—snapped off the string and fell to the ground in tatters. The dad was breathing hard like he’d just been in a bar fight. He held the stick up triumphantly. See that? the gesture seemed to say. I was the only one of you brave enough to actually do it. I am your god.

The children rushed poor, broken Eeyore, scrabbling in the exact way their parents had feared. The frenzy of the horde quickly gave way to bewilderment. Where was the—? Wasn’t there supposed to be—? Maybe this was a trick. Or maybe this was the point of the piñata, all the hitting, the smacking.

For some reason, it took a bit longer for the parents. They finally figured it out.

“You were supposed to get the piñata candy,” the mom told the dad through smiling, gritted teeth.

“That was the cake,” the dad shot back as the kids remained standing over the empty blue creature. “I was supposed to get the cake, and I did. You were supposed to get the candy.”

The other parents made a show of not listening, despite desperately craning to hear every word. God, this was the real party right here. No matter how nice it was to see their friends settle into domestic life just as they had, watching them descend into barbs and snipes was even better. It was unbeatable. Nothing would ever come close. \\

Shayla Frandsen has poems, stories, and creative nonfiction that can be found in New England Review, Iron Horse Literary Review, Smokelong Quarterly, and other places. Her writing has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, and Best Small Fictions. Learn more at shaylafrandsen.com.