‘The Boy Upstairs’ by Joshua Ferris

The Boy Upstairs by Joshua Ferris, 2022

The magic trick:

Capturing the experience of the early 2020s privileged struggle class

This is something close to a great story. When it ended, I just wanted it to keep going. But that said, why didn’t it keep going? Oh, the frustrations of the short story fan.

Anyway, it’s a great piece of writing for our modern times. The protagonist is semi-successful but maybe not as successful as her privilege would have allowed. Certainly not as successful as she needs to be to feel comfortable. She feels a modern sense of guilt for sins both real and imagined. She assumes the worst. She fends off depression. Her academically acquired philosophies are falling short in the real world.

Is it struggling-class white people complaining about how hard it is to not be comfort-class white people? It is that, guilty as charged. No less valid as a story though.

And that’s quite a trick on Ferris’s part.

The selection:

She knew she was difficult. She tried to ease up. She remembered herself as someone different, happier, more innocent. As a little seventh-grade Socrates, she had asked her social-studies teacher to define the concept of cynicism, and the reply she got back was so much unreal abstraction, so much adult gobbledygook, that she felt sure she never had to worry about it. Now those abstractions determined her moods, her mornings, the running commentary in her head. It was dreadful. She looked in vain for a way out.

READ THIS STORY ONLINE

As always, join the conversation in the comments section below, on SSMT Facebook or on Twitter @ShortStoryMT.

Subscribe to the Short Story Magic Tricks Monthly Newsletter to get the latest short story news, contests and fun.