[weekly_books]
This week’s short reads
The first two stories, a memoir from Christian Escalona and a science fiction story by J.R. Dawson, are thematically related and both are stunningly beautiful. Those are followed by four more short stories by Andrew Rutledge, Derek Fisher (more from him here), and two from Sarah Lynn Hurd.
Man Enough by Christian Escalona
A short and beautiful memoir about coming out. I’m the proud dad of a trans kid, and this one hit pretty close to home.
Fifteen years since I waited nervously in a Massachusetts clinic for my first testosterone injection. Fifteen years since my voice cracked at Thanksgiving dinner prompting my mother to ask me to leave her house for good. Fifteen years of learning to accept the ways my new life cost me my old one.
Thanks, Christian.
Six People to Revise You by J.R. Dawson
It’s a longer story about a dystopia where people can get some kind of whole-being renovation. The last step in the procedure is to get six people to suggest what should be changed about you:
A parent or guardian
Someone who has known you since childhood
A mentor or teacher
An employer or coworker
A spouse, partner, or close intimate friend
Someone who does not consider themself a loved one
I was in tears at the end of this story.
Lemonade Stand Deliverance by Andrew Rutledge
This is written from the perspective of a 6(?) year-old kid, and the narrator’s voice is perfect. Tears of laughter. By the second paragraph you’ll be hooked.
Anyways, so, like, back when the internet went beep boop beep boop bzzzzzzzt, my brother, he says these culdy sack kids down the road in Cherry Hills, ya know that kind of neighborhood where all the houses are brown beige and just, like, copy and pasted and copy and pasted, anyways, these kids, their chihuahua got lung cancer real bad because their mom smoked like a million packs a day. Got the dog second hand smoked.
I want lots more of this.
Ten Seconds by Sarah Lynn Hurd
A quick read that’ll stick with you, about how various tiny intervals of time can have life-altering implications.
Ten seconds is a lot longer than you think. Your whole life can change in ten seconds, or nine for that matter.
In the Slipstream by Sarah Lynn Hurd
This is a nostalgic story about perfect moments, and how it’s often impossible to see them until they’re long over. It’s short, and I’ve been thinking about it a lot since I finished it.
It was the summer after college and we were in love—all six of us—with ourselves, with each other, with the expanse of life we couldn’t yet see the horizon of.