janedykema

[janedykema]

Everyone already thinks I love you so no one will believe the situation in which we find ourselves, orchestrated by me, is an accident.

[janedykema]

I Couldn’t Accept the Ending of “The Undoing,” And It’s All Misogyny’s Fault

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The author of "False Bingo" on empathy, her grandparents, and the perils of call-out culture

[janedykema]

Sarah Rose Etter on "The Book of X," her surreal new novel about the traumas of living in a body

[janedykema]

He ran his fingertips over the walls as he passed, as if it were a new wall to him and he wanted to learn about it, as if it kept him attached to earth, as if he might otherwise lift up slowly and never land again.

[janedykema]

Tricks of perception shouldn’t cause fights — instead, they should open up new spaces of possibility, like they do in literature

[janedykema]

I was Padgett Powell’s TA for two summers at the Disquiet International Literary Program in Lisbon, and when I asked if I could interview him about his recent book, Cries for Help, Various, the real interview unfolded around discussion of the interview. What follows is a yearlong conversation about Trump, babies, and not doing an interview. We don’t talk about Cries for Help, Various.

[janedykema]

The first story in Carmen Maria Machado’s ‘Her Body and Other Parties’ brings up big questions about who we believe and why

[janedykema]

In our political moment, Hulu’s adaptation of the Margaret Atwood novel is all too real

[janedykema]

The cult novel’s adaptation as an almost-there Amazon television pilot

[janedykema]

The Ambassador

by Jane Dykema

The ambassador has veneers and a lawn full of guests. He’s tired. Tonight, he lets his deputy, whose tone is too grateful, address the visitors, whose eyes search for circling trays of wine. The guests and the ambassador make a show of honoring and being honored. They take turns clapping for each other. They mess up the timing and clap for themselves. The ambassador knows he is his country’s trophy wife, one of thousands. He knows he’s dull, that his dullness got him the job; categorically, ambassadors ought to be dull. He’s good at it, and he used to feel good about being good at it. To put people at ease is a skill. His own wife, the wife of the wife of the country, a satellite of a satellite,has aged much more rapidly than he, but it’s not her job to be beautiful and dull, it’s his. She stands behind the wine tray carriers. Tonight, the ambassador is mad about Twitter. His vice president’s son has died of cancer, and though the ambassador is 3,562 miles away, not on the A-team, he feels the loss acutely. It feels bad to care more than you’re cared for. A futile energy building inside him, the ambassador has been up two nights and a day reading the biography of John Adams. The biography details Adams’ friendship, estrangement, and gradual reconciliation with Thomas Jefferson, a reconciliation born through long letters exchanged over the death of a son. The ambassador looks up when he thinks about it, two men writing long letters. He looks for the same sky they saw. The New York Times posted tweets, responses to the death of the vice president’s son from around the world. It was bad timing for the ambassador to read the biography and then read the tweets. Each tweet weakens the way great men ought to mourn their sons, like swords in the back of a bull. Twitter will turn letters into horses. “You can ride a horse today,” the ambassador tells a guest urgently, “but you don’t have to.” The guests admire the lawn, pet the ambassador’s dog, squint in the low, dreamy sun. Leaves click together in a light breeze. Slowly, the line of guests sighs out through the gates. The ambassador flashes his teeth, thanking them, thanking them.

[janedykema]

I get a job at the community center. A man named Michael interviews me and I have High Hopes because of his dreadlocks and hands like starfish and the...