"In Sara Jaffe's short story "Today's Problems," the narrator keeps a living document of national and international headlines-police violence, Israel's potential annexation of Jerusalem-alongside intimate anxieties, like their own kid's possible ringworm. The combined list functions as a reminder that "today's problems" aren't abstract forces. They express themselves in the strange frictions of everyday life. The Portland writer's new collection Hurricane Envy (Rescue Press) operates like a larger version of that document."
"Their problems don't resolve neatly. The stories pause inside tension. The mood is tender, sometimes bleak, and often weirdly funny. Music provides much of Hurricane Envy's imagery and its sensory core. A fruit shop fills with the repetitive whistle of a "shriller Steve Reich." A guitarist stirs up a "massy rumbling" and kicks at sonic "confetti." Jaffe describes sounds with visual texture-an E chord becomes "wheat with sugar, the long lawn, the field.""
A living document juxtaposes national and international headlines—police violence, Israel's potential annexation of Jerusalem—alongside intimate anxieties such as a child's possible ringworm. That juxtaposition shows that large-scale problems manifest in ordinary domestic frictions. World-scale urgency braids with individual dilemmas around identity, parenting, and artistic life. Characters often exist in states of flux: queer people contemplating parenthood and young people navigating new independence. Problems remain unresolved, pausing in tension and producing moods that are tender, sometimes bleak, and often oddly funny. Music and sound supply strong sensory imagery, rendering sound as vivid visual texture.
Read at Portland Mercury
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]