“Amanda tried writing a card or something. She wrote that she and her fiancé had decided not to marry. Then she wrote that her fiancé had decided not to marry her. She said that she was sorry for any inconvenience. She added that she would appreciate gifts anyway.”— Allegra Goodman: “La Vita Nuova” : The New Yorker
Hits the ‘Lorrie Moore’ side of spurned-romance writing.
I loved teaching this story. It hits so many emotional registers with such finesse. That “or something”—I think we instantly understand that Goodman is using words Amanda might say to describe what she’s doing, but parsing the misalignment doesn’t inoculate us against its weird alchemy; as direct thought or dialogue—”I’ll write a card or something”—it would be sad but fairly flat emotionally. Goodman makes the thought and its failure simultaneous, Amanda’s fecklessness inseparable from her despair.
A well-deserved inclusion in last year’s Best American Short Stories.
