If I Survive You
“We can do [survive] hard things!” (Name the wannabe psychologist who likes to say this.) While I for sure don’t disagree with that statement, I suppose it doesn’t resonate with me (and often makes me feel kinda sad) because there always seems to be a whiff of oblivious privilege involved. While everyone needs a boost once in a while — and some people of course are in seemingly impossible (and even dangerous) situations where a “pep talk” like this might give them that extra resolve — I always wonder: Is this the first time some people have been told and encouraged that, yes, they can get through a situation? People have “survived” (done “hard things”) forever. Feel free to look up the Darién Gap in Panama and the story about the young girl who got separated from her mother there.
Go ahead, bring on the criticism.
If I Survive You by Jonathan Escoffery is a remarkable book. But I didn’t really “like” it; the way it made me feel is much how A Children’s Bible by Lydia Millet made me feel. (My post is here.) I don’t prefer “happily ever after” tales. I need some depth, and what often comes with “depth”? Sadness, hardship, maybe even some tragedy. Bring it on. But much like A Children’s Bible, any glimpse of hope came at the very end. Meaning, the last line.
If I Survive You has received a bunch of attention since its publication just a few months ago: The New Yorker named it a “best book of 2022,” Ann Patchett has heralded it on social media, and it was used as a prop for Sarah Jessica Parker on the set of And Just Like That. This collection of interwoven short stories explores the relationship of Trelawny, born to Jamaican parents, and his father. He is “surviving” the constant burden of having to answer to “what” he is, the 2008 economic crisis, hurricanes in his hometown of Miami, and a revolving roster of insufficient (and sometimes disturbing) jobs. And we hope he survives his father — both emotionally and literally — with whom he has a tense relationship.
Good literature isn’t a veneer…and it does no good to put a veneer on “hard things.”
originally published on instagram