Roy Spivey is not his real name, because the narrator has obscured it by rearranging the letters. She has done this because Roy is a married Hollywood actor, and she wants to protect his identity. The story follows the narrator and Roy on a plane journey, during which they have a brief but intense romantic encounter. The piece is hypnagogic and sexy; a half-daydream that we’ve all had about [insert actors name here] while dozing off on a plane. July leaves a hole where a man should be in this story, thus inviting the reader to fill it with whatever their own fantasy might be. In that sense, and in the sense that this is a story about unadulterated (if short lived) pleasure is what makes it one of the most transgressively generous short stories I’ve ever come across.
First published in The New Yorker, June 2007. Read it here
A Personal Anthology 