Joyce’s Reviews > The Best American Series: 14 Short Stories & Essays > Status Update

The librarians simply grabbed books and walked out, passing with fake confidence by armed men ready to kill them. The sound of a culture surviving was the discreet rustling of men’s underpants.

I just finished Lisa Abend’s “The Sound of Silence”. I can see what she is referring to. In this age of social media formats, we can get overwhelmed by superficial/shallow chatter that passes for connection ... we may think we want radical solitude, when what we truly seek is more like one-on-one meaningful conversations and exchanges.

Here I was, drawn to the isolation, and I end up getting a stronger community than I would have had in the city.

It seems odd to be reading someone’s complaints about “incessant chatter” of folks around her and electronically. Odd just these days of “safer at home” when we are - hopefully - not subjected to such peripheral chatter. I’m guessing the writer is applauding the social distancing edict?

I just finished “Rage of the Squat King” by Rick Bass. It was an interesting story, but it ended rather abruptly. It also didn’t flow well for me ... it kept bouncing from place to place?

I just finished Jeremy Collins’ “Thirteen Ways of Looking at Greg Maddux”.

Poignant story abt how we may feel connected to athletes or other celebrities we idolize, but in the end, we can only ever live our own lives. Said celebrity may never know what a profound effect he/she had on our lives ... but that’s OK ‘cause we know. They have their own lives to live, too.

That’s what I got out of that story. 😁

I just finished Sarah Kokernot’s “M & L”.

I can’t even begin to imagine what Miriam is going through, upon seeing Caleb. And what Liam is also going through, knowing that Miriam saw Caleb. After what Caleb did to Miriam 15 years ago. 😢

Holy moly. I just finished Justin Bigos’ “Fingerprints” ... and it all went straight over my head. I couldn’t figure out who the characters were and how they related to each other, what motivated their actions, or even the setting. ☹️

I just finished Sofia Samatar’s “How to get Back to the Forest”. Oh, my ... is that what we’re doing to the kids? Is that what day care is doing to the kids? Supplanting parents with inanimate Parent Figures? (Certainly not bugging & drugging them to forget!) 😳

I just finished Adam-Troy Castro’s “The Thing about Shapes to Come”. A generation of non-human-shaped babies ... later rounded up and corralled in the desert(?) when human-shaped babies returned. (Oops ... spoiler?) Not sure whether I like this story or not. Maybe it’s a metaphor I’m just not understanding?