‘The whole family giggles and I am standing there, holding his father’s hand, looking into his eyes, hesitating. Time seems to slow down.’
For several weeks Ziyyad is adamant about a visit to his home, but I delay. Another visit to another family, I think. On display the whole night! Again! I know that a good ethnographer never turns down an invitation. But every night of my final two weeks in Aleppo I have committed myself to activiti…
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‘I think there should be a National Service of Hospitality. The best way to see the true face of humanity is to serve it a plate of chips.’
Camilla Grudova on bad-mannered customers.
‘Anyone who has ever worked night shifts will understand the vertiginous feeling that comes with staring down the day from the wrong end.’
A.K. Blakemore on working nights.
‘I was constantly reading job ads, trying to find my holy grail – a job I could stand to do, and someone foolish enough to hire me.’
Sandra Newman on learning how to play professional blackjack.
‘I loved being a receptionist. What I loved about it was playing the part of being a receptionist.’
Emily Berry on being a temporary office worker.
‘Every part of you would swell, including your eyeballs, and no matter how much water you drank, you were always dehydrated.’
Junot Díaz on working for a steel mill.
‘Ice gets into the sea in two ways: it falls in from calving glaciers, or it forms during the winter. Both kinds are spectacular.’
‘Every time I tried to write more, it turned out to be a fruitless endeavor – I felt like I was trapped in a sealed room with no windows.’
Fiction by Yu Hua, translated by Michael Berry.
‘She is thorough in a way that is off putting to people. It makes for a good secretary, not a good conversationalist.’
Fiction by Madeline Cash.
‘One did not have high hopes for Gettysburg. Nor for Pennsylvania in general. Having grown up in Indiana, Diana felt she’d earned her condescension.’
Fiction by Jessi Jezewska Stevens.
‘It’s a paper bag filled with pastries. Chicken turnovers.’
An extract from Family Meal by Bryan Washington.
‘Boredom is a complicated stink of an emotion, one that is far more layered than we presume.’
Nuar Alsadir on boredom.
