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E-BookEPUBePub WasserzeichenE-Book
272 Seiten
Englisch
ONEerschienen am02.05.2024
A richly detailed, brilliantly woven debut about the life and lore of one Black American family, told in thirteen distinct snapshots of their family gatherings __________ 'A deftly woven tapestry that scrupulously depicts familial ties and estrangement, richly told with a nuance that allows each character dignity and grace' New York Times 'Company introduces an unforgettable cast of characters who remind us that family can be both wound and salve. Sanders offers sharp and original insight into the intimate politics of race and class and the impossible rules we've inherited to navigate them. This is a brilliant and immaculate debut' Danielle Evans, author of The Office of Historical Corrections 'Company is a story collection that eats like a novel. Each story feels like a completely different vision of the same majestically sprawling family, as these neurotic high achievers struggle to balance the duties of kinship, social appearances, and honesty to their true selves. Reading Shannon Sanders makes me want to visit home' Tony Tulathimutte, author of Private Citizens __________ The children of the four Collins sisters - Cassandra, Lela, Suzette and Felice - have a complicated inheritance. It includes unbreakable rules for navigating society, contested stories about their grandparents' early lives, capacious musical talents, and an opal necklace of uncertain origin. In this sparkling debut, Shannon Sanders brings us into the company of this majestically complicated multigenerational family as they meet, bicker, celebrate, worry, keep and reveal secrets, build lives and careers, and endure. With deceptive ease, Sanders captures the nuanced performances of the most intimate and most estranged family relationships. From a pair of brothers reuniting to oust a deadbeat boyfriend from their mother's home to a quartet of nieces roped into attending a party in their aunt's honour, from unexpected visitors to ghostly presences and unwelcome memories, each gathering in this collection is filled with buoyancy and affection, with solemnity and sadness. The family stories that comprise Company lead to a deeper, more compelling truth about the rules by which we live - those that we inherit, and those that we make for ourselves.

Shannon Sanders lives and works near Washington, DC. Her fiction has appeared in One Story, Electric Literature, Joyland, TriQuarterly, and elsewhere, and was a 2020 winner of the PEN/Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize for Emerging Writers.mehr
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Produkt

KlappentextA richly detailed, brilliantly woven debut about the life and lore of one Black American family, told in thirteen distinct snapshots of their family gatherings __________ 'A deftly woven tapestry that scrupulously depicts familial ties and estrangement, richly told with a nuance that allows each character dignity and grace' New York Times 'Company introduces an unforgettable cast of characters who remind us that family can be both wound and salve. Sanders offers sharp and original insight into the intimate politics of race and class and the impossible rules we've inherited to navigate them. This is a brilliant and immaculate debut' Danielle Evans, author of The Office of Historical Corrections 'Company is a story collection that eats like a novel. Each story feels like a completely different vision of the same majestically sprawling family, as these neurotic high achievers struggle to balance the duties of kinship, social appearances, and honesty to their true selves. Reading Shannon Sanders makes me want to visit home' Tony Tulathimutte, author of Private Citizens __________ The children of the four Collins sisters - Cassandra, Lela, Suzette and Felice - have a complicated inheritance. It includes unbreakable rules for navigating society, contested stories about their grandparents' early lives, capacious musical talents, and an opal necklace of uncertain origin. In this sparkling debut, Shannon Sanders brings us into the company of this majestically complicated multigenerational family as they meet, bicker, celebrate, worry, keep and reveal secrets, build lives and careers, and endure. With deceptive ease, Sanders captures the nuanced performances of the most intimate and most estranged family relationships. From a pair of brothers reuniting to oust a deadbeat boyfriend from their mother's home to a quartet of nieces roped into attending a party in their aunt's honour, from unexpected visitors to ghostly presences and unwelcome memories, each gathering in this collection is filled with buoyancy and affection, with solemnity and sadness. The family stories that comprise Company lead to a deeper, more compelling truth about the rules by which we live - those that we inherit, and those that we make for ourselves.

Shannon Sanders lives and works near Washington, DC. Her fiction has appeared in One Story, Electric Literature, Joyland, TriQuarterly, and elsewhere, and was a 2020 winner of the PEN/Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize for Emerging Writers.
Details
Weitere ISBN/GTIN9781911590996
ProduktartE-Book
EinbandartE-Book
FormatEPUB
Format HinweisePub Wasserzeichen
FormatE101
Verlag
Erscheinungsjahr2024
Erscheinungsdatum02.05.2024
Seiten272 Seiten
SpracheEnglisch
Dateigrösse2351 Kbytes
Artikel-Nr.14578995
Rubriken
Genre9201

Inhalt/Kritik

Leseprobe



BIRD OF PARADISE


Evening fell and up came the automated glow of the citronella torches. Cassandra had noticed them as she first stepped into her boss´s backyard, a dozen earthen obelisks discreetly lining the patio and the outer reaches of the lawn, and registered them as a particularly un-Jon-like aspect of his Takoma Park home. Difficult to imagine the university president-who dressed each day as if for a press conference, fleurs-de-lis flashing at his jacket cuffs and the school colors shining in the satiny threads of one bow tie from his bottomless reserve-strutting into a Lowe´s in search of these garden lights that looked like mud sculptures. Now, though, the darkness-activated torches turned majestic, their steely basins emanating scent and showy little flames. This was Jon: drama, spectacle, pomp and circumstance, and so forth. Presidential!

However, while the torches gave off a warmly flattering aura, performing small mercies on the zits and crow´s-feet of the faces in the assembled crowd, they didn´t provide nearly enough light if one happened to be looking for someone, which Cassandra was. Sorry, just a minute, she told the group clustered around her. She touched the arm of the person before her-some young hanger-on from Student Affairs-and the seas parted; she pushed through.

She needed her nieces for a photo, quickly. They´d only just been here, gathered with the crowd on the patio to hear Jon´s end-of-evening remarks, and then seemed to disperse as Cassandra was swept up in toasts and congratulations. She thought now that she saw one by the koi pond, a high-piled puff of hair above a shadowed young face, a lissome body in black. She headed that way, gathering the skirt of her dress in one hand and clutching her glass of Opus One in the other, careful, so careful not to trip.

Beautiful dress, murmured a woman named Janet as their shoulders grazed each other in passing. Janet would start the upcoming semester as the new dean of diversity and inclusion, once Cassandra ascended to the role of provost. Passing Cassandra the name of her favorite fashion rental service had been Janet´s first act of solidarity with her predecessor.

A little birdie helped me find it, said Cassandra, winking, and hustled past.

For Jon, for this, Cassandra had chosen a dress called the Zofia by a designer well outside her ken, a magenta cocktail number with a plume of shirring for a shoulder strap. She had done so, understanding that it would draw even more than the usual share of Michelle Obama comparisons so many of her colleagues seemed dead set on making, suggestive as it was of last year´s inaugural ballgown. That was all right; one could see that as a sort of compliment. The Zofia had been a nod to Jon´s preference for sartorial regality. Cassandra had had her hairstylist put in a bronze rinse and take off an extra inch to dilute the Michelle-ness of the overall look, and-it was all fine. But the structure of the dress, its constrictive boning and the flare of tulle at the hip, made hurrying difficult. Especially now that night had fallen. And by the time she reached the koi pond, the phantom niece had disappeared behind a wall of party guests.

Of the eightyish guests, Cassandra supposed that half-including Jon, hence the party, the heavy hors d´oeuvres, the unending cases of upper-midlist French wines-were sincerely happy for her appointment. Twenty-eight or so had openly backed Neil Margolis, the other apparent front-runner. Another nine were utterly goddamn inscrutable, their faces sealed in neutrality all evening as they burbled their congratulations and clinked Cassandra´s wineglass. Fine. They had their own aspirational reasons. But of course it left her to twist in the winds of uncertainty, both tonight and once they were all back in the hallowed halls.

And so-operating on such a slim margin of confirmed support-how grateful she had been all evening for the true agnostics! The catering staffers passing bacon-wrapped scallops on trays. Jon´s cleaning ladies, two lithe brown figures clad in black, clandestinely collecting dropped napkins and left-behind plastic flatware, sweeping them into the wide mouth of a garbage bag for what Cassandra suspected must be double overtime. The photographer, someone´s earnest nephew, wielding a gifted Nikon DSLR. When one needed a break from the bullshit-and one often did-one could reach for a scallop or duck into a dim corner and supplant university small talk with, for example, a comment about the mosquitoes that despite the citronella seemed sent straight from hell to swarm Jon´s backyard. God, the relief of it, these few blessed souls present who truly didn´t care one way or the other.

Except that now the photographer, worried about the dying light and the party guests´ accelerating drunkenness, was beginning to reckon with a preordained list of hoped-for shots, photos that would likely punctuate the next university bulletin and perhaps a local culture magazine or two. Half an hour earlier, he had accosted Cassandra by the fruit display. Dr. Collins, could we get one of you with your family?


 


Family. When Jon had put this thing together, he´d floated a possible date by her, and she in turn floated the date by her husband during their bi-nightly phone call.

I don´t know, Sandy, Charles had said after a moment, not concealing his distraction or the clattering of his fingers on a keyboard. Down in Atlanta, he was sorting out the details of an acquisition turned nasty, managing trips up to DC only as absolutely necessary. This is instead of the other thing?

He meant the official do that would take place once the semester ended, a gargantuan gala the likes of which Jon was famous for. Tuxes and gowns. In addition to, Cassandra clarified, though she understood already that this was the groundwork for a no. This is a more intimate gathering at Jon´s house. You could wear a sport jacket. It´s not a big show.

Charles huffed a little at that.

Not a big donor show, Cassandra clarified, cradling the phone between her ear and shoulder as she parted the curtains and peered down at the cacophonous Saturday nighters below. The window in the living room of her condominium overlooked the corner of Eighteenth and M, a triangle of bars and restaurants. On weekends after dark, the block teemed with under-thirties, interns from the Hill and students of nearby institutions, their dance music throbbing from the windows. Cassandra let her eyes wander over the crowd without focusing on any particular tearaway, careful as always not to positively identify some drunken student from her university.

I don´t know, Sandy, Charles said again, this time in a tone that effectively ended the conversation. The other thing, though, I´ll be there, absolutely. Spit-shined and suited up.

It wasn´t such a disappointment. The handful of times she´d gotten Jon and Charles in a room together, Cassandra had found herself physically disoriented, as if the hemispheres of her brain had switched sides without warning.

Her daughter, Cecilia, didn´t answer the phone. This stung but didn´t surprise Cassandra. Compiling recent data, she realized there was, at any given moment, a better than 65 percent chance that Cecilia wasn´t speaking to her.

Her son, Cyrus, answered midway through the second ring. Though she´d meant to launch right into the question of the garden party, first she couldn´t stop herself from bitching for a full fifteen minutes about Cecilia, to Cy´s gentle clucks of validation. His patience persisted even as noise swelled behind him, collegiate debauchery not unlike what went on outside Cassandra´s window, and finally Cassandra forced herself to come to her point: Anyway-could you get here for the party, by any chance? On the tenth?

I have a dance final, said Cy, not without tenderness. But you know I would, if not.

She did know, and after they hung up she sat motionless for a minute or two, picturing her dismay as a small gray stone, turning it over in her mind, painting it a bright white with wide, forceful brushstrokes of gratitude. She took a few deep breaths, and then she called her sister Lela.

Can I bring somebody? asked Lela. Of course.

No, said Cassandra. Bring who?

I´m seeing someone, said Lela.

I know, said Cassandra. But-

You don´t know. This isn´t that guy. This one´s name is Irving and he´s been saying he wants to meet you.

This isn´t the time for that, though, said Cassandra, pinching the bridge of her nose. For this, just family is best.

Lela exhaled theatrically. Worrying we´ll make you look bad, she murmured, as if to herself. You already have the job, don´t you?
...
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Autor

Shannon Sanders lives and works near Washington, DC. Her fiction has appeared in One Story, Electric Literature, Joyland, TriQuarterly, and elsewhere, and was a 2020 winner of the PEN/Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize for Emerging Writers.
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Sanders, Shannon