The titular G refers to a fictional drug that makes you invisible. It was a drug that best friends Bea and Bonnie did together often when they were in college—too often, in fact. Years later and cleaned up, Bea visits Bonnie for a final farewell before leaving New York to enroll in PhD program on in California. Bonnie presents her with a parting gift: a dose of G. Woven throughout this fateful last trip is the story of a friendship that veers into unhealthy codependence and then to flat out self-destruction as both girls contend with body image and identity struggles. The best addiction narratives show us the elation that comes with using, and Ling Ma makes G-induced invisibility so tantalizing: it “lifts the tiny anvil of self-consciousness… Just go out and voyeur around, nothing but a Guston eyeball bouncing down Amsterdam…” A standout story in one of my favorite collections in recent memory.
First published in Zoetrope: Allstory. Collected in Bliss Montage, FSG, 2022
A Personal Anthology 