January 2nd & 9th, 2023 - Notions of the Sacred
Dear TNY,
It’s the first story of the new year and you offer up “Notions of the Sacred”.
Which sucks.
This is the type of story that’s shared in a writing workshop, not even one sanctioned by a university, and four people, including the author, talk about how amazing it was and how it spoke to them and how they all can’t understand how this author hasn’t been given a book contract or hasn’t sold a limited TV series about life and living and being alive; meanwhile, all 16 other people in the room are holding their tongue because this is the most self-absorbed, pointless, conflict-free, dead narrative they have ever read. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the problem with literature. Those four people represent the literary industry and its consumers. And the other 16 of us have left the fucking building in search of something that isn’t snake oil.
What gives? This whole story is telegraphed in, such that it’s obvious the whole time what will happen. The other “characters” only exist to move the MC around. Zoe? Just a fucking foil as a successful pregnant character. And the man who talks about Greeks v Americans? He’s only there so the author can talk about something he or she is interested in.
You know what? You don’t tell anyone you are pregnant if you are fucking smart. Yeah, I’m a man. I can hear you now. “You’re not allowed to have opinions on this matter.” I sure am. See, contrary to popular (and divorce) beliefs, we make half the baby. Which, and I know this is crazy, means we can care about them too. And my ex and I went through two miscarriages together. The first one, before it went south, we told everyone she was pregnant. We already had a healthy son. What could go wrong? Everything. So later, and this is why you tell no one, she had to call everyone back and tell them the pregnancy was terminated. Destroyed her. Still hurts to this day. The next one, there was an actual baby. We saw it. Heartbeat. Spine. Limbs. Googly eyes. We waited months to tell people. All the signs were good good good. But that one died too. And that one hurt her so bad that she made me call everyone to tell them. She couldn’t bear doing it. She was devastated. I was devastated.
You know what I’m not when reading this story? Devastated. You know what the main character is not while “living” this pile of loose stool? Devastated. Because the story is not alive. It’s some dumb main character who treats a pregnancy like a fucking novelty power and the writing is so flat, so two-dimensional, that we can’t even get mad at her for how stupid that idea is. Nor can we care about her friendship with Zoe. Or her lost baby. Which, bloop, is just gone? Not how it worked from my experience. Certainly not, “I’ll have a nap, and then go to the café and have wine, and oh the news is interesting.”
Dumb.
Where’s the conflict? She drinks a glass of wine when she’s pregnant. She’s secretly happy the baby died. She wants to punch Zoe in her fat, life-filled belly. She doesn’t tell anyone the baby died and keeps pretending she’s pregnant for the attention. Like, where are the signs that a human stars in this story and not just the author’s puppet trying to navigate a story with as much richness as a fucking postcard? I imagine the only readers who can relate to this story on its merits alone are those in denial about their own existence as humans. The “Awesome Without Trying” crowd. Fun.
Well, that’s all I’ve got. A day late on this one. Needed to get the year five review out. And I’m on an adventure with my kids in Hawaii right now. So you guessed it, I can’t be bothered to do this shit right the fuck away.
I’m already sunburned. Feels nice. Almost like someone is sleeping in the bed next to me, touching my skin. Almost.
See you next time, where hopefully you’ll bring something for the other 16 of us instead of catering to the idiotic and uneducated four.
Nick
PS this is an embarrassment of the word “annunciation” after the glorious story you published by Lauren Groff last year.
