Son say:
When I grow up, I’m going to be David Letterman.
Daughter say:
I’m going to be an immigration lawyer.
Son now vice president in bank. Daughter immigration lawyer. They happy. I happy, of course. Make everything worth it. How come I depress?
— Story # 1 in The Prince of Mournful Thoughts and Other Stories, by Caroline Kim
Category: short story collections
-
-
Who say talking make life better?
from Mr. Oh, Story # 1 in The Prince of Mournful Thoughts: Stories, by Caroline KimCaroline Kim was born in South Korea. She has an MFA in poetry from the University of Michigan, where she won a Hopwood Award, and an MA in fiction from the University of Texas at Austin, where she was a James A. Michener Fellow.
-
Dear blog readers, are you in for a treat.
Caroline Kim, winner of the Drue Heinz Literature Prize, and currently on the Long List for the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Short Story Collection, has agreed to share with self her process for writing a short story.
The story we’ll be parsing is Mr. Oh, the first story in the collection. Among other things, self will be asking her why this story came first. Or, put another way, how does she decide the order in which to put her stories?
Caroline’s answers to self’s questions will be posted next week. But read her story first. Read her collection, the entire collection. If you think of any questions, you can leave comments here, and self will pass on to Caroline.
So excited! SQUEEEE!!!
MERRY CHRISTMAS!
-
Self knows what she feels most like writing from the kind of books she chooses to read. There was a year she read only travel books. Travel books by women. Two years ago, she decided to read books written on, or about, islands.
Hard to say what the theme was for her 2020 reading. In the early part, she read a lot of science fiction. Towards the end, she read some great books about American politics: Demagogue: The Life and Long Shadow of Senator Joe McCarthy, by Larry Tye (Five Stars), and Life of a Klansman: A Family History in White Supremacy, by Edward Ball.
She stayed up all night reading Megan Mayhew Bergman’s short story collection, Birds of a Lesser Paradise. (This was a year for really excellent short story collections: Caroline Kim’s The Prince of Mournful Thoughts, and Raphael Bob-Waksberg’s Someone Who Will Love You in All Your Damaged Glory)
In the final story in Bergman’s collection, the main character’s dog has swallowed one of her socks. He’s done this before, the sock always works itself out. But this time, she’s not so lucky and ends up having to take the dog to the vet.
- I said we’d do anything, but I was worried we couldn’t afford to treat him. I knew his eyes would convince me to mortgage the house, become a one-car family, eat ramen noodles five days a week.
It reminds self of that time when her beagle, Gracie, went into seizures. Self found her one morning, tongue purple and hanging out of her mouth. She rushed her to the vet, and the vet said self would have to take her to a more equipped vet hospital. They would put her in intensive care: $1,500/day. And self decided, right then and there, that she couldn’t afford it. And she cried her heart out in the vet’s office, after calling son in Cal Poly San Luis Obispo (He did not want to put her down). They let her hold Gracie when they gave her the shot. Self was depressed, non-stop crying, for at least a month. That was one of the hardest decisions she’d had to make in her life (Gracie had cancer; new tumors kept popping up, in strange places: in her mouth, under her tail, in her breasts. A new tumor a week, by the end)
Stay safe, dear blog readers. Stay safe.
-
So, what did self do today? It was very chilly (She’s never raising the heat. It’s a test: to see how chilly the house gets). She wanted to go to the Palo Alto Farmers Market, because it’s been nearly three months. But she was nice and cozy under the blankets, so instead she tried to form alternative plans. Then, about 10 a.m., she decided to go. Even though, usually, at this time the lines in front of certain vendors get really long.
It’s a good thing she decided to go, because she had to try and get into a pair of jeans, for the first time in two weeks. And it was quite a struggle. Which was when she realized she’d been in denial all these past few weeks, telling herself it was okay to get a small cheesecake from her favorite cheesecake store, Namesake Cheesecake in Menlo Park, telling herself eating rice for breakfast was a good idea.
Anyhoo, she did go, and it was not crowded, and she was able to get dimsum and Indian food. On the way there, she noticed that the parking lot next to Yumi Yogurt was fenced in, and there were a lot of shopping carts filled with clothing inside the enclosure. Then, she passed Stanford and saw there was a line of RVs parallel parked on El Camino — very broken-down looking RVs. Then, she was able to find parking right away, which is saying something for Palo Alto.
She’s back now, in bed again, not watching CNN because she’s tired of people wondering why 45 won’t wear a mask. Because after four years, you’re really delusional if you think Clown will ever do the right thing. She can’t wait for him to vacate the White House, and her consciousness.
She’s reading a book of short stories called Birds of a Lesser Paradise, by Megan Mayhew Bergman. The stories are so moving. The story she’s on, Saving Face, is about a beautiful young woman whose upper lip is torn off by “a wolf hybrid,” four weeks before her wedding. And she cancels everything: her wedding, her fiancé, her looks, and her life. A year later, she’s endured several surgeries to “fix” her appearance, but she’s still very down on herself.
Which reminds her that Jason Bateman’s monologue for Saturday Night Live had a long segment about *almost* getting his face mauled by a chimpanzee, when he hosted SNL fifteen years ago. That was pretty entertaining — Jason Bateman has really, really large hands, has anyone noticed? But large hands are better than tiny hands. Where was she?
Oh yeah, the Megan Mayhew Bergman story. She hasn’t finished it yet. Will update when she does.
Stay safe, dear blog readers. Stay safe.
-
The books below took her through a tumultuous year. Books are listed in the order in which she read them:
- Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion, by Jia Tolentino
- Stories of Your Life and Others, by Ted Chiang
- Someone Who Will Love You In All Your Damaged Glory, by Rafael Bob-Waksberg
- The Goblin Emperor, by Katherine Addison
- I Capture the Castle, by Dodie Smith
- The Run of His Life: The People vs OJ Simpson, by Jeffrey Toobin
- TheChildren of Time, by Adrian Tchaikovsky
- Brideshead Revisited, by Evelyn Waugh
- Big Little Lies, by Liane Moriarty
- Leviathan Wakes, by James S. A. Corey
- Mama’s Last Hug: Animal Emotions and What They Tell Us, by Frans de Waal
- Caliban’s War, by James S. A. Corey
- Hidden Valley Road: Inside the Mind of an American Family, by Robert Kolker
- Abaddon’s Gate, by James S. A. Corey
- The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming, by David Wallace-Wells
- Cibola Burn, by James S. A. Corey
- Her Protector’s Pleasure, by Grace Calloway
- The Snakes, by Sadie Jones
- The Shadow King, by Maaza Mengiste
- First: Sandra Day O’Connor, by Evan Thomas
- Colonel Chabert, by Honorée de Balzac
- The Charterhouse of Parma, by Stendhal
- In West Mills, by De’Shawn Charles Winslow
- Demagogue: The Life and Long Shadow of Senator Joe McCarthy, by Larry Tye
- Your House Will Pay, by Stephanie Cha
- Heaven, My Home, by Attica Locke
- Bread and Salt: Stories, by Valerie Miner
- The Prince of Mournful Thoughts, by Caroline Kim (Winner of the Drue Heinz Literature Prize)
- Life of a Klansman: A Family History in White Supremacy, by Edward Ball
-
“I have a sneaking suspicion that this interest in the biographical facts about women writers comes from the hidden belief that women have less imagination than men, and that their works rely more heavily on the unscrupulous plundering of reality than do those by male writers.”
-
Excerpt from Story # 1: Il Piccolo Tesoro
I chose this Ligurian village in the sensible way, by spreading a map of Italy across my kitchen table in Toronto, closing my eyes, and sticking a pushpin into destiny.
Stanza in affitto: one of the phrases I know by heart.
At the door of the rambling house, I knock assertively.
“Good morning.”
These stories are mostly about women who travel. Alone.
Self doesn’t pretend to have anything in common with Valerie Miner. Not. In. The. Least!
It’s been ages since she’s been in Italy. Or maybe it just feels that way. 2015. The world was so different then.
Stay safe, dear blog readers. Stay safe.
-
At the end of January, she landed on her first great read of 2020: Someone Who Will Love You In All Your Damaged Glory, by Raphael Bob-Waksberg.
February was TOTALLY GREAT! She spent the entire month reading two good books: The Goblin Emperor, by Katherine Addison, and I Capture the Castle, by Dodie Smith.
The end of March brought her to Brideshead Revisited.
The end of April brought her to Leviathan Wakes, by James. S. A. Corey.
Last half of May: Caliban’s War (Book 2 of The Expanse) and Hidden Valley Road: Inside the Mind of an American Family, by Robert Kolker.
June: Abaddon’s Gate and Cibola Burn, Books 3 and 4 of The Expanse
July: The Snakes, by Sadie Jones
End of August: The Charterhouse of Parma, by Stendhal
September: Great, great month. Read In West Mills, by De’Shawn Charles Winslow, and Demagogue: The Life and Long Shadow of Sen. Joe McCarthy (totally absorbing, great biography) by Larry Tye.
Currently reading: Your House Will Pay, by Steph Cha.
To look forward to this month: the official launch of Caroline Kim’s collection, The Prince of Mournful Thoughts, the winner of the Drue Heinz Literature Prize!
Stay safe, dear blog readers. Stay safe.
-
These are exciting times. Self is reading The Charterhouse of Parma (Brilliant and funny and moving).
Five on her ‘To-Read’ List
- The Nickel Boys, by Colson Whitehead
- Surrender, White People! Our Unconditional Terms for Peace, by D. L. Hughley
- Demagogue: The Life and Long Shadow of Senator Joe McCarthy, by Larry Tye
- In West Mills, by De’Shawn Charles Wilson
- The Prince of Mournful Thoughts and Other Stories, by Drue Heinz Literature Prize winner Caroline Kim
Kanlaon 