Louis suggests that what may be hardest to live with about violence is not the initial shock when it occurs but how quickly it becomes natural as our bubbles re-form themselves around it. Change and L’effondrement, where the narrative and authorial voice are virtually one and the same, attempt to strike the difficult pose of neither ignoring nor accepting violence, allowing it to be at once ubiquitous and terrible.
‘He knows his brother is driving. The two of them are in their mother’s car and his brother is next to him. He rests his head against the passenger window and closes his eyes. There are bumps in the road. His head bangs against the window but there is no pain.’
On this month’s episode, host Nicole Flattery is joined by writers Paula Dias Garcia and James Young to read from and discuss their stories featured in the latest issue of The Stinging Fly magazine, Issue 51 Volume Two.
‘Alderman, Powers and Kushner all use fiction to think creatively about our contemporary moment, connecting ideas about past, present and future, human and non-human intelligence, in thoughtful and surprising ways.’
“The children step forward one by one, and say, ‘I’m special because…’ and one by one they fill in why with brave, loud voices. They’re too young to hide who they are. The people watching them know them better than they’ll ever know themselves.”
On this month’s episode, host Nicole Flattery is joined by writer Tim MacGabhann to read and discuss his story ‘Pit’ featured, in the latest issue of The Stinging Fly magazine, Issue 51 Volume Two.
‘He knows his brother is driving. The two of them are in their mother’s car and his brother is next to him. He rests his head against the passenger window and closes his eyes. There are bumps in the road. His head bangs against the window but there is no pain.’
“The children step forward one by one, and say, ‘I’m special because…’ and one by one they fill in why with brave, loud voices. They’re too young to hide who they are. The people watching them know them better than they’ll ever know themselves.”
‘From inside this hell, in this dazed state of terror, I write to you about my adventure yesterday, offering a testimony of defeat from a man who longs for a hot bath like the ones he used to take before the war.’
‘[N]one of us likes to think we live and have our days in a time more stupid than others we might have lived in. All previous ages were the dark ages, we like to believe, and we are the new and enlightened ones.’
For this month’s story, Nuala O’Connor takes inspiration from Elizabeth Bowen’s 1925 short story, ‘The Parrot’.
This month’s story is co-authored by Eley Williams and Nell Stevens. It’s from Duets, a new anthology of co-authored stories, published this month by Scratch Books.
11th February 2025
18th December 2024
‘He knows his brother is driving. The two of them are in their mother’s car and his brother is next to him. He rests his head against the passenger window and closes his eyes. There are bumps in the road. His head bangs against the window but there is no pain.’
“The children step forward one by one, and say, ‘I’m special because…’ and one by one they fill in why with brave, loud voices. They’re too young to hide who they are. The people watching them know them better than they’ll ever know themselves.”
‘From inside this hell, in this dazed state of terror, I write to you about my adventure yesterday, offering a testimony of defeat from a man who longs for a hot bath like the ones he used to take before the war.’