‘The point of lucid death,’ he said, ‘is to retain the consciousness of dying, while blunting the agony of it.’
In November 2007, I travelled from Boston to New Delhi to visit my parents. It was an unseasonably cold week. A dense fog from the northern mountains had poured into the caul of the city and sat, soupy and unmoving, for days on end. Connaught Place, the epicentre of the city’s commercial activity,…
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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.
‘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.
‘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.
‘How can I accept a trauma or a loss that I cannot define?’
Rebecca May Johnson on pregnancy and divining the future.
‘The past is no longer behind me but in front.’
An extract from About Ed by Robert Glück.
‘I won her with my grief first / a mess of steaming entrails, enticing / with its gloss.’
Two poems by Madeleine Stack.
‘Who knows: what I write I must eat, what I don’t write – eats me.’
