The Break Up Of Ice by Lucie Elven, 2018
The magic trick:
Focusing heavily on what isn’t said
If the art of fiction lies in the writer’s subtle push-pull between what is said and what is unsaid, then consider “The Break Up Of Ice” to be all push. Or all pull. I guess I’m not sure which is which. Either way, the story positively revels in what is unsaid. I found it very difficult to get a good read on what exactly is happening here. As such, you are compelled to read on in hopes of clarity. When it doesn’t form, you’re left to puzzle back over the (very brief) text for clues.
And that’s quite a trick on Elven’s part.
The selection:
That he was a classic case of what she found intolerable did not make her less hungry; the opposite. By March she had started on his newspaper columns, guessing at the cover-ups piling up sentence over sentence. She imagined him composing them on cliff tops, staring as banks of water pulled pools out of dark caves and helped them back into the fold.
She abhorred him, felt distant but obsessed, was ashamed that he had caught her in his distortions.
In other words it came as a relief when spring arrived and she read in the paper that Mr. Edgar had died.
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