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| The author's book shelf and book, and the phenomenal LOVE ME BACK |
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| Portrait of the writer's reading chair |
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| The incredibly talented author |
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| The novel you need to read RIGHT NOW |
Sometimes books undo you as you read them. Alexander Maksik's Shelter in Place did that to me. About mental instability, prison celebrity, love, loss and desperation, it's shockingly original. I raved about it in the San Francisco Chronicle because it was so audacious and original. A few days ago, I met him at the New England Independent Bookstore Association Reception and he was gracious, funny, brilliant, so I asked him to write something for my blog. And he did.
He's the author of A Marker to Measure Drift, which was named a New York Times Notable Book and a finalist for both the William Saroyan Prize and Le Prix du Meilleur Livre Étranger; You Deserve Nothing, and SHELTER IN PLACE, which I tell you is like nothing you have ever read. Truly, a favorite book of the year for me. He's also a contributing editor at Condé Nast Traveler, his writing has appeared, or is forthcoming, in Best American Nonrequired Reading, Harper’s, Tin House, Harvard Review, The New York Times Book Review, The New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic, Salon and Narrative Magazine, among other publications. Maksik is the recipient of a 2015 Pushcart Prize, as well as fellowships from the Truman Capote Literary Trust and The Corporation of Yaddo. He is the co-artistic director of the Can Cab Literary Residence in Catalonia, Spain and his work has been translated into more than a dozen languages.
Alex--thank you, thank you, thank you.
At Night We Slept Beneath
the Stars
by Alexander Maksik
by Alexander Maksik
“How
are you?”
“I am
fine,” Hélene answers, biting at her bottom lip.
I
am fine. No contraction. Emphasis on the verb.
Hélene
is sixty-four years old, soon to retire from her job as a mid-level bureaucrat
in a government agency. Hair thinning, complexion of someone who’s spent much
of her life beneath fluorescent lights.
“Do
you go out to lunch?”
“Yes.”
“Yes?”
“Yes,
I do.”
“Yes
you do?”
She
lets out a frustrated sigh.
“Yes
I do go out to lunch.”
She
knows the drill but does her best to avoid it.
I
smile at her. She shifts uncomfortably in her chair.
“Do
you have a favorite restaurant?”
She
narrows her eyes. Purses her lips. Is she thinking or does she not understand
the question? A silence passes.
“No.”
I
raise my eyebrows.
She
sighs. “No, I don’t have a favorite restaurant.”
“Nowhere
that you love? Or that you like very much?”
She
shakes her head.
I
let her slide. She taps the tip of her
pencil against a pad of yellow paper making small dark marks on the page. She looks up at me. Eyes so flat.
“Where
do you eat at lunchtime?”
“A
bistro.”
I
smile.
“I
eat at a bistro near the place where I am working.”
“Where
you work? Near your office?”
“Yes,
I eat at a bistro near my office where I work.”
“Do
you eat there every day?”
Her
cheeks take on new color. She scratches at her neck.
“Yes,
I do.”
She
pauses.
“Eat
there every day.”
Does
she think I’ve trapped her? Forced her to reveal something she finds shameful
about her life?
“Is
it a good bistro?”
“It
is fine. The bistro is fine.”
We’re
stuck. I’m stuck. I want to talk about what is good, what is better, what is
best. That’s the lesson.
“Why
are you studying English, Hélene?”
“It
is interesting to me.”
“Really?”
I laugh. “Is it interesting now?”
“Yes
it is.”
“It
isn’t boring?”
She
suppresses a laugh as fast as it comes.
“No,
it isn’t boring.”
Her
eyes are brighter now. I try another tack.
“Do
you like to travel?”
“Yes,
I like to travel.”
She
surprises me. She’s sailed across the Indian Ocean, traveled through the Baltics,
Patagonia, Easter Island, Senegal, Kenya, India, Tanzania, Botswana, Sri Lanka,
Mali.
She
shrugs her shoulders as if to say, what did you expect? Some frightened old
lady?
“What
was your worst trip?”
“My
worst trip was south of France.”
“To
the south of France?”
“Yes,
my worst trip was to the south of France.”
“Why?”
“I
didn’t feel good with my sister. It
wasn’t nice with her.”
She
glides her palm over the desk, looking past me.
“You
didn’t get along with your sister?”
“Yes.
I did not get along with my sister.”
“What
was your best trip, Hélene? The very best trip you ever took?”
She
watches her hand moving from side to side across the table.
“Tanzanie,”
she says, but not to me.
“Tanzania?”
“Yes,
Tanzania. It is the best trip I ever
made.”
“Why?
Why was Tanzania the best trip you ever took?”
“Why.
Why. Why. You always say it.” She shakes her head.
We
both watch her hands, her fingers spread out across the Formica, still now, as
if to hold the table down.
“We
climbed Kilimanjaro mountain.”
“You
did? You climbed Mount Kilimanjaro?”
She
nods, smiling again.
“It
was very enormous.”
I
try to imagine this woman climbing nineteen thousand feet into the air.
“Is
that why it was your favorite trip?”
She
shakes her head.
“No,
it is that we were sleeping outside. In night.”
“At
night you slept outside?”
She
nods. There’s depth now to her expression.
“At
night we slept outside.”
“That’s
why it was your favorite trip?”
“Yes.
Because we could see the stars.”
I
nod.
“You
slept outside under the stars?”
She’s
nodding.
“Yes,
we slept under the stars.”
“It’s
a beautiful sentence isn’t it?”
“Yes,
it is. It is a beautiful sentence.” Now she seems gleeful.
I
stand up and uncap a thick marker.
There’s a large tablet of blank pages fixed to an easel.
I
write in full, black letters across the center of the page:
AT
NIGHT WE SLEPT BENEATH THE STARS.
Her
eyes are bright.
“At
night we slept beneath the stars. Will
you say that?”
She
writes the sentence into her notebook. She frames it carefully with an elegant
rectangle.
“At
night. We slept beneath. The stars.”
“At
night we slept beneath the stars,” I say, moving my hand as if I might know
something about music.
“At
night we slept beneath the stars,” Hélene says.
“Yes,”
I say.
“At
night we slept beneath the stars.”
“Yes.”
“It’s
a small poem,” I say.
“Yes,”
she says. “It’s a beautiful poem.”
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