When I was in graduate school, my friend Yumi was hit by a
car and killed. The school newspaper published a rather crass photo of her
backpack, spilled open to reveal linguistics textbooks and a small silver tea thermos.
Before the funeral, I tried to memorize
an expression of sympathy in Japanese to tell her sister, but she was too sad
and I too shy to say anything after all.
Death at 22 is shocking. When I set out to read The Opposite of Loneliness, I had no
idea that the author, Marina Keegan, died in a car crash just days after
graduating from Yale. Normally, I skip the introduction, but seeing that its
author was Anne Fadiman (the mystery author I tried to recall months ago when
my books were in storage), I gamely plunged in only to realize the book I held
was even more poignant than the title promised.
Keegan's essays collected in this book describe an emotional attachment to a first car,
her struggle with Celiac disease before gluten-free was trendy, a portrait of
an exterminator, and her final piece published in the Yale Daily News about her fears of leaving the safety of dorm rooms
and libraries. Even though the challenge of this book was to read a collection
of essays, I was drawn more to her fiction pieces. Keegan takes familiar
emotions, jealousy, regret, and centers them in situations that are relatable
but unique. Claire has to say something
at the funeral of the boy she was sort of dating. Addie comes home for winter
break and must divide her time between her family and a serious boyfriend.
Karen at 62 is embarrassed to explain a tattoo she got when she was 19.
Although this first read of her work was colored by shock
and an over-attentiveness to details relating to or mentioning death, mourning,
or even middle-age, future readings will be just as successful in suspending
the readers disbelief. Only in a slightly different way.
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