Old Hope by Clare Sestanovich, 2019
The magic trick:
Focusing only on the aspects of the protagonist’s life the story wants to focus on
“Old Hope” takes us through a young woman’s not entirely exciting or satisfying life, alternating between two relationships rife with sexual tension – one a friendship and one an email exchange with a former teacher.
When I said “through her life,” I misspoke, but my mistake actually gets us closer to the magic trick I want to highlight here.
The story doesn’t really give us a feel for our narrator’s life at all. It edits out nearly everything except a handful of key moments that define those two relationships.
How is she able to afford to live in New York City? Does she worry about money? What does she do for a living? Does she enjoy her work? Does she have hopes and dreams or career ambitions? How does she feel about her parents?
We don’t know. We – or at least speaking for myself – barely even wonder. The story is locked in on what it wants to tell us about.
And that’s quite a trick on Sestanovich’s part.
The selection:
When I was about halfway between twenty and thirty, I lived in a large, run-down house that other people thought was romantic. There was a claw-foot tub with squeaky knobs, and philodendrons that draped over the bannisters. The door to my bedroom was at least twelve feet tall. I installed a coatrack over the top, and whenever I needed to retrieve a jacket, or a towel, I stood on my desk chair, swivelling uncertainly.
There were six of us in the house. We were all about the same age, and at some point during the summer—I had moved in at the beginning of March, when the mornings were still cold, veins of ice glittering over the front steps—this became claustrophobic, unbearable. The house smelled of sweat and bike tires and something at the back of the oven being charred over and over again. Two boys lived on the top floor and another lived in the basement. (They weren’t men, not really.) I was aware of being surrounded. Shirtless, they cooked big vats of tomato sauce, the steam beading on their faces and clinging to the fur in their armpits. They smoked bongs they didn’t clean, and returned my books warped by bathwater.
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