Tag: Helen de Witt

‘The English Understand Wool’ by Helen DeWitt

DeWitt, depending who you ask, is somewhere between an underrated genius and a universal taste, but she doesn’t publish new work very often. This – OK, a novella more than a story; who’s counting? – is an exquisite self-contained world, led by our narrator Marguerite. Wealthy but fallen on hard times, she is required to write her life story, which we are reading. Her poise and orientation toward the world are visible when she is asked to write more about her feelings: “Perhaps there were people who would like to hear about feelings, but I did not think that they were people I would want to know.” The purity and intensity of DeWitt’s prose is a wonder, and the story will have you referring to certain things as “mauvais ton” for weeks afterwards.

First published as a standalone story in the New Directions Storybook ND series, 2022

‘On The Town’ by Helen de Witt

Out-of-towner moves to the big city and on his first day sees Harvey Keitel eating pancakes in a diner. “Dude!!!!!!!!! I saw Harvey Keitel eating pancakes!!!!!!!!!”, he says to his indifferent flatmate. This and many other delights awaits the reader of Helen de Witt’s story, which, like everything written by Helen de Witt (and there isn’t much, and it’s all excellent), slinks in and out of languages (the institutional, the technical, the corporate) to find previously unexplored areas of human dumbness and desire. Gil, the out-of-towner, wows feckless New Yorkers with his competence in DIY, speaker installation, PowerPoint, data visualisation. It is, as Sheila Heti says in her introduction, a parable that “one simple man might swoop in and make order out of the chaos and stupidity of the world”, which, if you think about it, is actually the greatest story ever told!!!!!!!!

First published in Electric Literature, June 2018 and available online here and in Some Trick: Thirteen Stories, New Directions, 2018