‘The Ladder’ by V.S. Pritchett

The Ladder by V.S. Pritchett, 1949

The magic trick:

A serious story with an absurd, comical surface

V.S. Pritchett was a very funny writer. He wrote very funny stories. So, this week we’re doing a back-to-back of VSP humor.

“The Ladder” – and this really is the true magic trick about all Pritchett – also is very sad. He’s good at layering comedy into tragedy and sadness into his punchlines.

Here, a girl returns home from school and finds herself in a new position of maturity. Her relationship with her dad is taking on a new conspiratorial understanding. But driving this admittedly serious and delicate change is something over-the-top absurd. The stairs at their house are missing. That is to say, she has returned home to a large redesign construction project that has temporarily limited access to the second story by ladder only.

It’s hilarious. It’s ridiculous.

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

The selection:

We lived in an old crab-colored cottage, with long windows under the eaves that looked like eyes half closed against the sun. Now, when I got out of the car, I saw scaffolding over the front door and two heaps of sand and mortar on the crazy paving, which my father asked me not to tread in, because it would “make work, for Janey.” (This was the name he called his second wife.) I went inside. Imagine my astonishment. The little hall had vanished, the ceiling had gone; you could see up to the roof; the wall on one side had been stripped to, the brick, and on the other hung a long curtain of builder’s sheets. “Where are the stairs?” I said. “What have you done with the stairs?” I was at the laughing age.

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.