"The inside of her head felt slow with panic"

April 30, 2016 11:34 PM

"The Choking Victim" by MeFi's own Alexandra Kleeman is a short story that portrays one new mother's anxiety. The dream-like fiction linked at the author's web site offers a wider perspective on her work.

Selected stories:

• "You, Disappearing": "Nobody thought the apocalypse would be so polite and quirky."
• "Intimation": "I was trying to think of all the different things I liked about doors."
• "Hollywood Snow" (an audiovisual presentation by Kleeman herself): "Eddie had a misunderstanding about movies--about what they were."
• "Fake Blood": "I had arrived in costume, but it was not a costume party. Just a normal party, they said."
• "Morphogenesis": "Magnolia flowers smell strong and white and they hold something hard at the center."

Her journalism and scholarly work may also be of interest:

• "The Bed-Rest Hoax: The Case Against a Venerable Pregnancy Treatment."
• "After 25 Years, the Twin Peaks Festival Is Still Wonderful, Still Strange."
• "This Means Raw: Extreme Dieting and the Battle Among Fruitarians."
• "Alexandra Kleeman on the Poetry Bot RACTER."
• "Familiarity Breeds Beauty: Collective Aesthetics and the Mere Exposure Effect" (Google preview).

posted by Wobbuffet (1 comment total)

Neat! I went straight for the nonfiction and the fruitarian article was great (in the vein of 'a supposedly fun thing that I'll never do again'). I also could have sworn we talked about the bed rest article on MetaFilter but can't find it on a quick search.

Going back to the fiction was interesting--the New Yorker piece is chilling. So many 'are these red flags or...?' and yes, lots of anxiety. Thanks for sharing.
posted by librarylis at 10:45 AM on May 1, 2016 [1 favorite]