With this story from Old Babes in the Wood, I read “Our Cat Goes to Heaven”, from Brick Magazine 2004 (“Puss ‘n Heaven” in Issue 73’s table of contents). Each has funny moments but, of course, the stories revolve around the loss of a companion, so they are preoccupied
Straight away, there’s this matter of the quetzal. I know I’ve been puzzled by it before and something about the familiarity that settles like dust when I learn it’s a bird makes me think I’ve learned this before. The quetzal doesn’t stick. I think it’s a old poetic form,
The premise of this second story in Margaret Atwood’s new collection Old Babes in the Wood is that Nell is telling a story about two friends, John and François. “They’re dead now. A thing that happens increasingly: people die. This radiator incident took place in the early 1990s, when
Maybe three years ago, I watched an interview with Margaret Atwood—back when all the talk was about The Testaments (either its coming or its arriving), in which she was asked whether she considers herself an optimist or a pessimist and on the following weekend, Mr BIP and I were
When Nell comes home just before dinnertime as “First Aid” opens, many readers will recognise her immediately, as I did. I first met married couple Nell and Tig in the linked collection Moral Disorder (2006). I read that collection on the subway, mornings and early evenings; the rhythm of
