Hibernation by Anna Noyes, 2013
The magic trick:
A sensual story about grief
It’s our second Anna Noyes story of the week. Yesterday, we looked at “Treelaw.” Today we look at “Hibernation,” the first story in her 2016 collection Goodnight, Beautiful Women.
“Hibernation” begins with our protagonist calling the police to report that her husband has disappeared into the quarry outside their home. This is obviously a very dramatic and traumatic situation, and, yes, the rest of the story finds her grappling with what happened.
She doesn’t come to many conclusions. So, for the reader, we mostly just get memories of their relationship together – how they met, how their relationship developed, and how her husband’s mental health deteriorated. Then, we watch how she’s processing it all in the weeks after the fact, living in the same cabin next to the quarry.
In the absence of definitive solutions, it’s a very sensual story. The experience, the grief, and the processing are all described in a very sensual way. It’s as if you can smell the grief. Certainly you can see the quarry and its junkyard. But you also can almost feel what this woman is going through; the shower water on her spine, the feeling of being watched. It’s an impressive story, an impressive feat of writing to take something that (hopefully) few readers can directly relate to and still make us feel it so deeply.
And that’s quite a trick on Noyes’s part
The selection:
Back under the covers she bites the edge of the mug to stop her teeth from chattering. The night hums with the sound of her pumping blood. When she turns on the fan, there is the promise of what she cannot hear. For example, Jack gasping for air as he breaks the surface of the water, or the wet flop of his steps across the porch as he comes back home.
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