Status Updates From In This Desert, There Were ...

Aha! There’s that bizarro intersection of whimsical sci-fi concept meets oh no why is she choking herself that I expected with Elizabeth Tan’s input in this collection, as seen here in ‘The Blue Leopard’. The mention of wanting to piss made me check who the author of this story was, and while my brief internet research has been inconclusive, I cannot rule out Marylyn Tan being a relative of Elizabeth’s.

Woah there’s a bit less whimsy and a lot more heavy shit in here than I was expecting. Flies, Glass, and perhaps the end of Reunion Dinner have been the best of this afternoon’s collection.

A pretty compelling pair of stories to kick off - definitely interested in sticking with this collection

Putting this on hold for a while. Somehow this book with such a gorgeous cover and premise (short stories by Singaporean Australians) is pretty mediocre and honestly boring. Kinda embodies why I used to dislike short story collections.

“That night, as Asha tucked her two children into bed, she finally acknowledged what her world had become. In the morning, her husband would pick up Jack and Olive to spend the weekend with him. Asha would remain in the house. She would wander through the empty rooms. She would sort through her husband’s belongings. She would grieve for the person who no longer existed to her but who was still alive.”

“Sumitra closed her eyes now, and in the darkness of her mind, she saw a helicoid spark growing into a free-wheeling tarantula of light that was maybe the self in renewed formation, or whatever the self might look like without the body; whatever the soul might actually be. And the light it was made from was the same light in everything else; in every body; even inside every object.”