Tag: Catherine Lacey

‘The Grand Claremont Hotel’ by Catherine Lacey

The Grand Claremont Hotel was on the other side of town (the caution that Proto had issued stated I was free to remain in the city, as long as I did not venture near L’hotel Delle Cento Storie, nor come into contact with the young bartender again during my stay).

There was no issue with my reservation at this new hotel, although I was greeted with grave (yet perhaps not unexpected) news on completion of my check-in.

The desk attendant handed me a pale beige envelope made of exquisite heavy paper, paper of such a high quality, such weight, that one might feel—whether correctly or incorrectly—that even by holding such an envelope one’s life had been irrevocably changed. The envelope had a matte navy lining and contained a heavy note card embossed with the Grand Claremont Hotel’s official logo—a small illustration of the Grand Claremont Hotel’s façade, encircled by an ornate typography reading The Grand Claremont Hotel.

In dark blue ink and intricate calligraphy, the note card read:

Due to Client Complaints
The Company has no choice
but to cease your employment.

A porter took my suitcases. The desk attendant asked if I might take an aperitif in the hotel bar. I declined—I said I would make my way to my suite, to get some rest.

The elevator took me to the twenty-ninth storey. The doors slid open soundlessly; the floor, high above the city and the rest of the hotel, decorated immaculately, was filled with light.

As I stepped out onto the landing, I noticed a maid walking towards me. I put my arm between the open doors, to hold the elevator for her.

As the maid passed me two strands of hair wafted from her head. One landed on a shaggy white rug in front of me and the other on my left shoe.

For a few minutes, I felt unable to move. I stared down at those two strands of hair, black and thick, and though I realize that technically hair is dead, they each seemed to be breathing, fluttering, moving toward me, telling me something. […]

I stand at the window all day, watching my breath gather wet on the glass, fade, gather, and fade again. […] I find myself fixed on the memory of those two strands of hair and what they told me on living and dying, but since there is only one thing to know about living and dying, I won’t bother with it now.

Published in Certain American States, Granta, 2018

‘Family Physics’ by Catherine Lacey

Bridget, the main character in ‘Family Physics’, is someone who gives up on marriage after three months and once walked out of college and drove around the US for so long that her family presumed she had died, personifying the drifters that populate Lacey’s collection. In this story, Lacey’s dig at the absurdity of family obligations is both funny and sad. Of all her deft snapshots, this, about how Bridget’s sister had become someone she no longer recognised, stands out. 

And, sure, people always disappear into new people, and no one can stop the way new versions of people overtake the old versions of people, but something about the new Linda was so menacing that it made me suspicious of what she’d done with the old Linda.

You leave the story none the wiser about how the next decade of their family dynamics will pan out, which might sound frustrating but actually renewed my appreciation of the genre in a way that reminded me of Joy Williams’s dictum – that a short story doesn’t care what you think about it. Let’s face it, short stories usually leave you (well, me anyway) hungry and vaguely unsatisfied, making them far more realistic than novels, which try and con you into thinking you’re getting the complete picture. 

First published in The Sewannee Review, Spring 2018. Collected in Certain American States, Granta, 2018. Read it online here