This week’s story, “Maintenance, Hvidovre,” by Olga Ravn, is a Kafkaesque tale of a mother’s experience during her stay at the maternity ward of a suburban hospital in Hvidovre, Denmark. The story, told retrospectively from the unnamed first-person narrator, recounts the strange unfolding of events at the hospital during her stay–which entails the surreal disappearance…
Month: May 2023
“The Plaza”
This week, I’m excited to provide some thoughts on “The Plaza,” by Rebecca Makkai, which appears in the May 8, 2023 issue of The New Yorker. “The Plaza” invokes the “rags to riches” master plot–but in a modern, ironic manner. The Cinderella of this story is Margie, a 23-year old waitress at a hotel bar…