Bonsai trees, loaded guns, and a season of rats
Welcome back to Memoir Monday—a weekly newsletter and quarterly reading series, brought to you by Narratively, The Rumpus, Catapult, Longreads, Granta, and Guernica. Each essay in this newsletter has been selected by the editors at the above publications as the best of the week, delivered to you all in one place. It may be the start of a new work week, but at least we have this great new writing to get us through it.
Within the Scope
by Laura Stanfill
While my friends write their truths in nearby cabins, I wear my silence like a bulletproof vest. Even alone, without Internet or any link to the outside world, I zip my lip, button my mouth, lock the truth up tight with a twist of an invisible key. Just in case. Safety first.
My Grandfather and the Fukien Tea Tree: A Botanical History
by Jessica J. Lee
My grandfather had been tending the tree for two decades, since he optimistically emigrated from Taiwan to the Niagara Falls suburbs. He spent his retirement there working as a janitor for the Chef Boyardee factory. In his down time, he cared for his small front garden, for a peach tree that grew by the driveway, and for its tiny counterpart indoors.
Oath to the Queen
by Xiaolu Guo
My next lesson in ideology came several years later. I was sitting in a ‘Life in the UK’ exam, during an afternoon somewhere in north London. We were in a dim and shabby looking multi-functional community space with two examining officers monitoring us. Next door, a Turkish kebab shop blasted out a loud cacophony from a televised football match. Before I had entered the exam room, I had been waiting in this restaurant, eating a very burnt lamb skewer with a plate of salad. Now the meat was giving me a stomach ache, or was it just the anxiety I was feeling about the exam? Would I fail? I probably would. People say it takes three generation of immigrants to become native, or feel native.
Sight and Insight
by Liane Kupferberg Carter
I was still a toddler when my mother started taking me to doctors. They prescribed drops, eye exercises, and, eventually, glasses when I was 4. Mom chose blue and white striped cat eye frames for me. “These are adorable,” she said. If she said they were pretty, I assumed they must be. I wasn’t sure I wanted to wear them. But my mother wore glasses too, and I wanted to please her.
Beasts of the Fields
by Aimée Baker
The spring of the rats, my brother barely left his bedroom. Some long, cold days, even small movements became too much for him. When we were home alone together, I listened for the sound of his feet, scuffling across his clothing-ridden floor. This is how I kept him alive, by listening.
Writers’ Resources
Grab a last-minute spot in this “Freelancing 101” online course at Catapult—starting tomorrow!—and learn how to get published.
If you’re going to be at the upcoming AWP conference—and/or if you live in San Antonio, TX—come to the very special AWP edition of the Memoir Monday reading series! (On a Friday, not a Monday…)
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Until next Monday,