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Pics Or it Didn't Happen and Actual Stories
Animated classroom discussions, glass jars breaking in a laboratory, a daughter’s visit to the hospital, painting in a bathroom, and a ring more valuable than its cost—these are the images that Sanchez has made memorable through her sheer ability to describe clearly and effortlessly the complexities of the human heart.
—Ronald Baytan
Author of The Queen Lives Alone: Personal Essays (UP Press, 2012)
This book should carry a warning: You will feel things. You will ugly cry at work. Anna’s stories are not about the grand gestures, but about the preciousness of the everyday. Her characters (or we) always wonder, “How much time do we have?” or “What happens to everything we love?” Pics or It Didn’t Happen and Actual Stories wants you to hug your beloveds, because salvation is the one contagion we must help spread.
—Mary Jessel Duque
Winner of the 2018 Purita Kalaw-Ledesma Prize
There’s so much pain and longing in these stories, you just want to give these kids a big hug. They feel, and fail, and fall, over and over, and Anna manages to find the words for the shape of their sorrow. This is compassion, yes, but also craft, control. It’s also faith—that the right words in the right order can save us, make the world a livable place again, and our lives something we can almost endure.
—Maria Celeste F. Coscolluela
Teacher and Palanca winner for fiction
—Ronald Baytan
Author of The Queen Lives Alone: Personal Essays (UP Press, 2012)
This book should carry a warning: You will feel things. You will ugly cry at work. Anna’s stories are not about the grand gestures, but about the preciousness of the everyday. Her characters (or we) always wonder, “How much time do we have?” or “What happens to everything we love?” Pics or It Didn’t Happen and Actual Stories wants you to hug your beloveds, because salvation is the one contagion we must help spread.
—Mary Jessel Duque
Winner of the 2018 Purita Kalaw-Ledesma Prize
There’s so much pain and longing in these stories, you just want to give these kids a big hug. They feel, and fail, and fall, over and over, and Anna manages to find the words for the shape of their sorrow. This is compassion, yes, but also craft, control. It’s also faith—that the right words in the right order can save us, make the world a livable place again, and our lives something we can almost endure.
—Maria Celeste F. Coscolluela
Teacher and Palanca winner for fiction
156 pages, Paperback
Published January 1, 2020
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
September 26, 2022
Throughout the length of this anthology, a Plathian quote had floated in and out of my head: “Marble facades with blue veins, and jelly-glassfuls of daffodils. / It is so beautiful up here, it is a stopping place.”
Formaldehyde laboratories, fishballs, purple tiles, rain storms, car rides, and art exhibits. These are the scenes from which Sanchez draws us, not towards the big picture, but to the little things that are just as, if not more, important. Emerging with narratives riddled with Catholic guilt, lost friends, reunited friends, estranged families set in the glory of what was once considered “normal” in the pre-pandemic sense of the word.
In the limited books I get to read these days, this anthology was a certain reminder to pause and reflect on the little stopping places we have in our busy days. 23 college units, a writing job, and volunteer work pale in comparison to coming home to my dog who has been waiting for me all day. I find myself believing in very few things lately. But as I lie in bed, curled up in warm sheets, listening to the news, I can say this: glory to the mundane!
Formaldehyde laboratories, fishballs, purple tiles, rain storms, car rides, and art exhibits. These are the scenes from which Sanchez draws us, not towards the big picture, but to the little things that are just as, if not more, important. Emerging with narratives riddled with Catholic guilt, lost friends, reunited friends, estranged families set in the glory of what was once considered “normal” in the pre-pandemic sense of the word.
In the limited books I get to read these days, this anthology was a certain reminder to pause and reflect on the little stopping places we have in our busy days. 23 college units, a writing job, and volunteer work pale in comparison to coming home to my dog who has been waiting for me all day. I find myself believing in very few things lately. But as I lie in bed, curled up in warm sheets, listening to the news, I can say this: glory to the mundane!
August 8, 2024
This is the second book from Anna Felicia Sanchez that I’ve read. This book I’m reviewing, Pics or it Didn’t Happen, and How to Pacify A Distraught Infant. I sought out more books by Sanchez after reading and being really impressed by HTPADI.
Pics or it Didn’t Happen or what I will call in this review Pics opens with 2 pages of numbered entries from the author. She talks a bit about the paradoxical character of memory, citing musings of other long-dead authors. She eventually reveals this fixation on memory is related to the passing of a friend. The confession goes:
Pics’s stories are more mixed in quality. I think that the stories get better the further deeper one goes into the page count, but also the stories in the front portion are the least enjoyable material across the two books, therefore…her weakest. This is not to say that they are bad by any means! I think I just know enough of her work to get particular about it. I have also started to notice some patterns in her writing.
What I Disliked
I think that the material I enjoyed the least in Pics are 1) the entries wherein the story reads too trope-y and the predictable beats dominate the material and 2) the one with the weird cousin-incest element.
Another thing that weakened the book was a recurring writing shortcut, wherein one of the characters displayed an academic interest in their surroundings or context, which justified them sharing interesting background information about the object of interest. While this technique serves a functional purpose, it can come across as stilted and unnatural, especially when the character's behavior doesn't align with their traits or interests. For example, in Bev’s Visit, the point-of-view character’s only unique thing was rigorously researching the science of strokes for small talk fodder. Similarly, in Constellations, a character provides trivia that doesn’t relate to their undergraduate course. Finally, in Little Prophecies, one of the three schoolteacher characters talked about Taal Volcano’s geological history but we don’t know if she knows this because she’s a Science teacher, or what. Although having a character deliver stilted trivia could work once, the frequent use of this device across multiple stories in a single collection creates a noticeable pattern.
It was also really uncomfortable to read that Bev’s cousin got aroused from Bev’s sexual photo, and Bev laughed? It’s not like a moral affront but I retch at incest.
Thoughts From The Two Best Stories
Character writing and plot went hand in hand in what I consider the best stories: Little Prophecies and Gold from the Fields.
There’s love triangle dynamics with one side in mortal, drowning danger, set across the backdrop of Taal Lake (Little Prophecies). There’s a man who’s still a boy, a father who is still a son, agonizing over giving up a family heirloom, flashing back between golden fields and a pawn shop (Gold from the Fields).
The two examples cited above have massive stakes but one is, on paper, more urgent than the other. One is primarily an internal conflict (Man vs Himself), while the other is external (Man VS Nature, Man VS Man). I like the range in which stakes in Pics can be orchestrated. It added variety to the reading experience—moving from a story with a water rescue climax from one page, to a deeply emotional exploration of letting go of a sentimental object loaded with grief in order to alleviate the crushing reality of capitalism/feudalism in the next. Aside from variety, I think that the tone of each story’s themes has an appropriate type of climax for the type of conflict that it had.
Another Thing I Liked:
The best excerpt from the book is from the titular short storyPics or It Didn’t Happen. There are two strands of narration within this story. The secondary narration, near the end, talks about mortality and their future funeral. It's nearly two pages long, so I think it’s unwise to put in an excerpt. But the end of it is this:
This segment stands out sharply because it delivers a moment of impassioned speech.
Sanchez’s writing is about what simmers beneath the surface, implications and signposts, which don’t get me wrong: I am more inclined towards. However, this departure from her usual subdued tone is striking. After spending most of the book flowing with subdued words, this definitive statement is like running aground. The force behind a character’s expression on mortality makes sense within the autobiographical context disclosed by the author in the foreword.
Favorite: Gold in the Fields
Least Favorite: Bev’s Visit
Quite a lot of stories in Pics or it Didn’t Happen are radiant, while the others are nothing too offensive or too good to be memorable. But with themes of grief and loss undercutting through all of the material, executed with sincerity, I find that the weaker front half doesn't diminish the aims of the author with this collection. Overall, Pics or it Didn’t Happen is a beautiful book from a great author. I mentioned three particular prominent highlights about the collection’s writing, but there’s a lot more good about it that makes it a worthwhile read for those who strive to connect the inescapable Grief to something tangible, something bearing the resemblance of understanding.
Pics or it Didn’t Happen or what I will call in this review Pics opens with 2 pages of numbered entries from the author. She talks a bit about the paradoxical character of memory, citing musings of other long-dead authors. She eventually reveals this fixation on memory is related to the passing of a friend. The confession goes:
Me, I just want things to make sense.
Pics’s stories are more mixed in quality. I think that the stories get better the further deeper one goes into the page count, but also the stories in the front portion are the least enjoyable material across the two books, therefore…her weakest. This is not to say that they are bad by any means! I think I just know enough of her work to get particular about it. I have also started to notice some patterns in her writing.
What I Disliked
I think that the material I enjoyed the least in Pics are 1) the entries wherein the story reads too trope-y and the predictable beats dominate the material and 2) the one with the weird cousin-incest element.
Another thing that weakened the book was a recurring writing shortcut, wherein one of the characters displayed an academic interest in their surroundings or context, which justified them sharing interesting background information about the object of interest. While this technique serves a functional purpose, it can come across as stilted and unnatural, especially when the character's behavior doesn't align with their traits or interests. For example, in Bev’s Visit, the point-of-view character’s only unique thing was rigorously researching the science of strokes for small talk fodder. Similarly, in Constellations, a character provides trivia that doesn’t relate to their undergraduate course. Finally, in Little Prophecies, one of the three schoolteacher characters talked about Taal Volcano’s geological history but we don’t know if she knows this because she’s a Science teacher, or what. Although having a character deliver stilted trivia could work once, the frequent use of this device across multiple stories in a single collection creates a noticeable pattern.
It was also really uncomfortable to read that Bev’s cousin got aroused from Bev’s sexual photo, and Bev laughed? It’s not like a moral affront but I retch at incest.
Thoughts From The Two Best Stories
Character writing and plot went hand in hand in what I consider the best stories: Little Prophecies and Gold from the Fields.
There’s love triangle dynamics with one side in mortal, drowning danger, set across the backdrop of Taal Lake (Little Prophecies). There’s a man who’s still a boy, a father who is still a son, agonizing over giving up a family heirloom, flashing back between golden fields and a pawn shop (Gold from the Fields).
The two examples cited above have massive stakes but one is, on paper, more urgent than the other. One is primarily an internal conflict (Man vs Himself), while the other is external (Man VS Nature, Man VS Man). I like the range in which stakes in Pics can be orchestrated. It added variety to the reading experience—moving from a story with a water rescue climax from one page, to a deeply emotional exploration of letting go of a sentimental object loaded with grief in order to alleviate the crushing reality of capitalism/feudalism in the next. Aside from variety, I think that the tone of each story’s themes has an appropriate type of climax for the type of conflict that it had.
Another Thing I Liked:
The best excerpt from the book is from the titular short storyPics or It Didn’t Happen. There are two strands of narration within this story. The secondary narration, near the end, talks about mortality and their future funeral. It's nearly two pages long, so I think it’s unwise to put in an excerpt. But the end of it is this:
Or: tell them whatever you think can to stop them from dreaming that one day they will be able to stand over my grave to say hi or to apologize or to tell me all the things they never managed to. In this way you must break their hearts, in order to teach them that we had time enough.
—Page 154
This segment stands out sharply because it delivers a moment of impassioned speech.
Sanchez’s writing is about what simmers beneath the surface, implications and signposts, which don’t get me wrong: I am more inclined towards. However, this departure from her usual subdued tone is striking. After spending most of the book flowing with subdued words, this definitive statement is like running aground. The force behind a character’s expression on mortality makes sense within the autobiographical context disclosed by the author in the foreword.
Favorite: Gold in the Fields
Least Favorite: Bev’s Visit
Quite a lot of stories in Pics or it Didn’t Happen are radiant, while the others are nothing too offensive or too good to be memorable. But with themes of grief and loss undercutting through all of the material, executed with sincerity, I find that the weaker front half doesn't diminish the aims of the author with this collection. Overall, Pics or it Didn’t Happen is a beautiful book from a great author. I mentioned three particular prominent highlights about the collection’s writing, but there’s a lot more good about it that makes it a worthwhile read for those who strive to connect the inescapable Grief to something tangible, something bearing the resemblance of understanding.
January 9, 2022
I’m drawn to books about UP lately bcos as a fresh grad, I miss campus life so much. This book filled me with great memories of the pre-pandemic world, it made me miss my friends and orgmates, it made me hopeful for better days.
My personal favorites short stories are Lucky and Pics Or It Didn’t Happen.
My personal favorites short stories are Lucky and Pics Or It Didn’t Happen.
October 27, 2023
Upon reading the first few stories from this second book by Anna Felicia Sanchez, I immediately deduced that I might be heading into young adult fiction. Many of the characters here are students, majority of which are going through personal troubles and mental health issues. The approach, if I recall correctly, is starkly different from Sanchez’s first collection. But as I flipped the pages further, I became aware that the characters are moving past youth and the themes are becoming more mature. Reading this feels like I am growing older and older with the characters, whose stories offer wisdom and wistfulness.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews