In a very real sense, Laura van den Berg was my introduction to the short story. It was her story ‘Where We Must Be,’ collected in Best American Nonrequired Reading, that first got my attention, and she has had it ever since. ‘Antarctica’ is, I think, her most accomplished story, and was included in Best American Short Stories and Best American Mystery Stories in 2014. Few writers can accomplish what van den Berg does in this story, which is to render whole and legible a terribly unfinished, incomplete soul. She does this in the person of Lee, our narrator, who ventures to the titular frozen continent after her brother is killed in a freak accident at a research outpost. The story is populated by characters facing circumstances they never intended to incur, and those are my favorite kind of characters to watch move through the screens of language and narrative.
First published in Glimmer Train, widely available in van den Berg’s collection The Isle of Youth, FSG Originals, 2013
A Personal Anthology 