“You Tell Me”
by Clare Sestanovich
from the August 1, 2022 issue of The New Yorker
This is Clare Sestanovich’s third story in The New Yorker, where she is also an editorial assistant. I haven’t read much of her work (she hasn’t published a lot yet — her debut collection, “Objects of Desire,” was published a year ago), but what I’ve read has been excellent.
Here is how “You Tell Me” begins:
When her daughter’s husband called, Janet was in the parking lot of a store that sold everything: electronics and linens and huge plastic buckets of snacks. She was there to replace her TV remote, even though she didn’t watch much TV. Now that she was old—older, as young people said circumspectly—she had less tolerance for obsolescence: it was unpleasant to be reminded of her own. In her confusion at what her son-in-law was telling her, she pointed the remote at the old blue sedan, pressing Play to lock the doors.
I’ve got a few busy weeks in front of me, so I don’t know when I’ll get to read this one. But please feel free to comment with your thouhts below!
I guess this is an upper middle class ennui story that I found difficult to relate to. The generalized details almost seem to mean something but don’t. Maybe for other readers. That the daughter, Sacha is a lawyer and bored by it is understandable but she must be incredibly intelligent but unable to connect with any part of it. Which would usually get a regular person fired. Law students have to memorize pages and pages of law in law school and pull out the exact significance of what it all means and what one could expect. So the dullness of being a lawyer is well rendered if not very specifically focused. The opaqueness of this writing is extremely off putting yet maybe an effective way to describe a dull and uninteresting existance. Sacha and her mother seem disconnected. Maybe the loss of Sacha’s father explains the vacuum she feels in life or why should it be mentioned? And stealing someone’s dinner from takeout? Where does that come from? Is that how her ability to live returns to her? It’s difficult to make sense of her dislocation. The growing old I relate to. But not living a full life (and yes, that’s pretty undefinable except if you’re happy or are happy making others happy or being helpful in some way). But to dissolve into total meaninglessness because of becoming “older” (slight grace that the word extends) is difficult to understand. This makes me think of Sally Rooney who I also don’t understand either. Maybe that’s the point. To be able to perfectly explain a slight dysfunctional dissolution in the mother. Any explanatory commentary would be welcome.
Ennui, listlessness, the disorientation of old(er) age–all tales as old as time. But this writer has some chops. The repeated pressing of the key fob was spot-on, as was this description:
“They all wore a light touch of makeup under their eyes. You weren’t expected to sleep much, but you were expected to look like you did.” If you’ve known anyone who works in law in New York, you can’t fault this for being inaccurate.
A Lorrie Moore-esque sense of humor elevates otherwise quotidian details into moments of intrigue: The husband who works in code (astutely printed in italics). Using the crowd’s responses as “stage directions” at a baseball game. And that final paragraph is fantastic. I wouldn’t say this blew me away, but it was nonetheless a sharply written story.
Thanks, Larry. Im glad that I am not the only one who didn’t get it. I noticed that Sestanovich got a “5 under 25” award this year. Maybe she’sgtrying to show that a young person can wreite from an old person’s pov. If so, it certainly didn’t capture this old person’s attitudes or life. But then, I’m OLD, not “older”.
William Check,
I can understand your thoughts on the this story and maybe Sestanovich is a young person trying to write from an older person’s point of view. I am older too but older people have different viewpoints in reaction to growing older. I like the way the story flowed even if the content seem vague or obscure. Some older people face their getting older with not wanting to confront it any way. Their life just winds down and they let go. Maybe that is what she was writing about or the initial symptoms of disintegration particularly if the husband has passed away. Mothers and daughters are difficult to write about but I like the way the daughter survived better with her legal career because she seems to on the road to disintegration much earlier almost as though the mother sensing the daughter getting detached from aspects of her life, so a particular pattern might be being repeated. I wanted to see more detail but withdrawal is often accompanied by declining attention to detail. So maybe there is more to the story than it would seem on first read.
Larry –
Could be true. But you’ve got to be very good to write about disintegration in an interesting way.
William
True, a writer has to be very good to write about disintegration in an interesting way. I think it is very difficult to write about disintegration if only include certain details but describe the overall difficulty in an innocuous indifferent way.
John Cheever describes a disintegrating mother in his short story “Goodbye My Brother” but her beginning descent into disintegration is described in a very detail specific way. But Sestanovich may be looking at this mother in a different more modern way.
Usually the best short stories convey some sort of wise observation about life but it is never explained but usually very clearly shown in an extremely clever or interesting way. A very good collection of these is “The Oxford Book of American Short Stories” edited by Joyce Carol Oates. It would be great to read Joyce Carol Oates’ thoughts concerning Sestanovich’s story and the stylistic choices she employed to tell her story.
Larry
After a first-rate fiction issue and last week’s story by Han Ong, this felt like a return to more familiar New Yorker turf of upper-middle class ennui. I would agree there is something generic about it, but what keeps it afloat are the mother’s occasional thoughts and comments. For instance, telling the overburdened discount store worker that out in the parking “she is the customer” or her fascination and bewilderment with the seemingly pointless hysteria of sports fans (I can particularly relate to her here). And then you do have.a great final paragraph. Is the daughter to some degree showing signs of life by transgressing just as the mother may’ve done by stealing food?
I’ve noticed this sort of ennui and lifelessness in many characters as portrayed by young writers. Instead of the “yes” and “oh my gosh” moments of recognition I exclaim when reading the likes of V. Woolf or Lorrie Moore or Alice Munro, I keep thinking, “that’s not how it is” and “these are not real people” and “why choose such characters with so little life or zest or insight?” I would say that these characters are vacant and baffled and lacking in life force. But more importantly, they don’t feel real or alive.
Avery,
That is a really interesting observation. I totally agree with you that perhaps newer writers feel they need to craft characters who don’t feel real or live in order to read. Readers often shape what is being written by only reading novels or short stories that reflect their personal viewpoints concerning life and its possibilities for them. Sort of indirectly writers chronicle the general condition of society. So if the newer generation feels not real or alive that can show up in what is read or published or what isn’t. The most disturbing part of this story is the seeming withdrawal from all if life’s possibilities and pursuit of random action like picking up someone else’s dinner in a seeming attempt to feel alive again. But on the other hand it is good to observe if that is what is happening. May not agree with the perception but it’s as though that is how kids today feel and somehow that needs to be addressed (if there is anything that can be done) so anyone who feels aimless, tired and frustrated can find some life pursuit or something about life that gives them hope or purpose.
Hi, I just read it. I liked it, though still wondering about it. I can’t help but think it’s about the unfulfilled and vacant mind and heart of the mother who never went back to work or did much beyond staying home? She doesn’t have much to offer anyone it seems- or perhaps never did? She seems to be a passive mother even just observing life around her. Even her advice to the teenage worker seems odd and unshaped. The daughter seems to have a more acute reaction to her career and life – almost like look what you did to me – now I hate my life too- bordering on a sort of cultural participation death? I’m still wondering what the ending means. Any one have any thoughts ? Maybe there is a middle ground where you are not a victim of your career/ or noncareer. I sure hope so!
This story seemed like so many other short stories I have read recently . Family dynamics. Third person. The main character recently widowed and slightly at sea. But she does her best to come to the rescue of her daughter who is suffering from anxiety and depression. It was a Mom who is starting to lose her grip and dutifully trying to help her daughter who is losing her’s , for different reasons. The surprise ending is what made the story a winner. Neither of the women wanted to be at the game. They both were there to placate each other and the husband who was hoping to entertain them both. With one simple gesture the daughter revealed her angst to all. A home run.
I first discovered Clare Sestanovich here at M & G, only a week or two ago, and read “Different People”. I was attracted to her insight as a young writer, and decided to read more to see how promising she was. I went on to read seven of her stories that can be accessed online from her website, which includes all those from The New Yorker. Although four of her NYer stories have comment pages here, only two are listed in the M&G index. I found “You Tell Me” the better of the two, and the existing comments are interesting, so I’ll add a few.
Most of you folks were mighty disparaging of Clare’s story! I’m not saying she’s in the ranks with Alice Munro, but she deserves more praise than she’s getting here. Often, as I may have pointed out elsewhere, we set up in our mind what we think is a proper formula, and then find fault when our expectations are not met. I suggest this may have been the case here.
Yes, some aspects of the story and characters are opaque. I see that as by design. Janet is the only character we really get to know. Although not first person, we do follow her perspective. We don’t know more than she does.
She’s not especially old, is she? 60s? Her husband died maybe not old enough to have had what would be called a full life, so we’re told. Was he 60ish, more or less? Their daughter has been married only a year. Are they maybe early to mid 30s?
Regardless, unlike some commenters here, I don’t feel Janet is especially “disintegrated”, and certainly not enough for it to be of major relevance in the story. What are the signs we are presumably given? Absent mindedly directing her TV remote to her car? Big deal, she was distracted by the call from Danny, and she had the remote in her hand. Have you never been so distracted? At the ball game, when she went to get a drink, she lost track of where they were seated? I’ve never been to a baseball game, either, and I bet I could easily have gotten lost in a crowd like that! And why assume she is wothless, with nothing to offer, just because she didn’t go back to work after becoming a widow? Seems there must be multitudes of “worthless” people out there!
I can’t accept terms such as “meaninglessness”, or “vacant mind and heart” to describe Janet or her life. Janet is shown to be perceptive and self aware, though not perfectly so. She’s also self critical, continuously recognizinging her mistakes. She cares: She goes to Sasha when she realizes the need. She tries to convey to the girl in the store that she needn’t please everyone. I think she wishes Sasha would realize this.
I noted that when Janet asked Danny, “Who else knows?”, Danny was startled, and says, “knows what?”, then is “relieved” when Janet says she meant Sasha’s despair. What was Danny afraid it was about? Is he hiding something? Again, we don’t know because Janet doesn’t.
We don’t fully know what Sasha’s problem is. We’ve been given hints, starting with her childhood, when as her mother Janet had tried to help her through her insomnia and nightmares, and they seemed to her have eventually resolved. But, as Janet realizes, maybe they were only sublimated. Later, she tries to talk about dreams to Sasha, who only pulls further inward. We know Sasha is seeing a talk therapist, but we know nothing of what they talk about. Whatever it is, it doesn’t seem to be working.
Sasha never seems to have found herself or discovered her “passion”. She rather wants stability. Her sister Rachel says Sasha never knew enough interesting people. Her husband Danny seems pretty boring, and obviously can’t reach her. Her miserable life is coming down on her. Janet tries to help her, but Sasha resists being touched or probed. Her sister Rachel had asked, “is it too late?” Janet obviously believes it’s not.
We heard Rachel tell Janet not to “act like I’ve injured you”, which Janet denies. But at the ball game, when Sasha seems to be offering to accompany her mother to the refreshments, concerned about her going alone, Janet declines, because the suggestion that she’d better not go by herself hurts her pride. Janet immediately sees her mistake, invites Sasha to come anyway. Sasha declines in return, so Janet thinks it’s “too late”–another mistake. She doesn’t think of saying, “well, maybe it *would be best if you came.”
I didn’t view Janet’s act of claiming someone else’s food order to be such an extreme radical act that wholly condemns her as a person. Peculiar, impulsive, perhaps, and not a nice thing to do to someone, for sure. Am I the only person who has done a few odd or inconsiderate things in a lifetime? Why did she do it? Good question. Did CS even know?
When Sasha discovers she’s on camera, she feels violated (as when her mother suddenly yanked the covers off her). She’s been hiding, doesn’t want attention on her. Something snaps, she reacts. When we leave the story, her mother hasn’t been visiting for very long, and now she sees her daughter cry. What happens next?….
A few personals:
Larry Bone — It’s “Sasha”. I take it you *listened to the story. (Ha! I was caught in Jr. High for not actually reading an assigned story, when on the test I consistently misspelled a major character’s simple name. I had only been briefed by a friend on the story line.)
Also, I have J C Oates’ Oxford American SS collection, which I admire for not being the typical selection, yet excellent all the same. I also admire her Ecco Anthology of Contemporary American Short Stories collection.
William Check — Probably just a typo on your part, but it’s “5 under 35”. I wouldn’t want some readers of these comments to think it’s “under 25”. That *would be quite young! Sestanovich was 31 when this story was published. But I’m old enough to be her grandfather, had I married shortly after H.S., and my offspring had done so, too! I think Clare is intelligent and one to watch.
Dave, and AveryW — I like Lorrie Moore, too! Must read more, you’ve reminded me.
Hey, y’all, come on back to M & G, let’s get discussions going again!
I’m weighing in here just because I found this story a bit perplexing, and I appreciated reading other people’s comments here. It was a bit of a relief to read that others were uncertain about some of the plot points, actions, feelings, motivations, imagery, themes and so on.
Basically, my questions for myself were…is this story actually well-written? Beyond mildly interesting? Is this “New Yorker-grade literature” and I’m just missing something? I’ve concluded “no”.
Just to give some justification to that troll-ery (which isn’t a word, but “drollery” is)…I’d say that this is written to be deliberately impressionistic, from “Janet”‘s point of view, with her incomplete thoughts and knowledge. Possibly also her aging-person mental lapses. Maybe more simply, “Janet” is the classic unreliable narrator, unreliable even to herself. And that’s part of the story’s appeal…”Janet”‘s inability to help her daughter the way she would like to. All of the characters’ remove and alienation from each other. Like, “That’s this darn modern life for you!”
But with that given, the writer (Sestanovich) therefore has to be reliable, sharp and meaningful via the execution and I didn’t feel that. The baseball game felt more like a metaphor than a game; the husband “Danny” felt cardboard (he cooks, he codes, he cares); the references to the modern devices (the remotes, the phones and Alexa/Siri thing) were trying to suggest something, but didn’t really; the other daughter in Germany seemed more like a device than a character. Plus, two women with infants in a park that (I’m paraphrasing, but it’s close to this, you can check) “Put their children on the ground, and guide sand away from their mouths”.
Anyway, last note is that I read Ms. Sestanovich’s own comments on the story…and they didn’t help much. Also a bit muddled. You can judge for yourself: “In Janet’s case, such intuition goes by an especially fearsome name: the maternal instinct, a credential you’re supposed to possess without ever trying to acquire. If it exists, it depends on an idea that is at once obvious and absurd—that your child is, in some fundamental sense, *you*. Not untrue! This sense of symmetry, biological or emotional or both, can provide an essential foundation for otherwise shaky familial structures.”
and then “Without the myth of family resemblance and family coherence to fall back on, the familiar script of motherhood, whether learned or intuited, no longer seems like such a reliable guide. And the alternative to comforting myths is often uncomfortable truth. If Janet lets go of what she believes about her daughter, she will have to face what she knows—and what she doesn’t.”
Responding to Gary Emm’s comment, following mine just previous:
Having always been anxious about the impossible amount of must-reading I haven’t gotten to, investing time *rereading is something I’m only training myself to do in my “old age”–which is ironic, because now I also think more about how little time I may have left! But writing comments here has compelled me to reread. I first read “You Tell Me”, then listened to the author’s reading from the NYer website, then largely read it again as I was writng my comments above. Doing this seemed to turn any “perplexity” to a better appreciation of Clare’s writng. I may reply on her story later. For now I want to focus on one intriguing question:
What exactly *is “New Yorker-grade literature”? We’re talking new short fiction here. The stories they publish are their fiction editor’s selections from whatever is submitted to them for consideration, which is a limited choice. I imagine there is an attempt to cover many authors, introduce many new ones, and cover a variety of types of stories and writing styles. So I doubt they’re all necessarily the *best stories available to them.
I sometimes read annual story anthologies, especially ‘Best American’ and ‘O’Henry Awards’. At 20 stories in each, in a given year the two usually total just under 40 stories (due to occasional duplication between them) chosen by their editors from the previous year’s periodicals. Unfortunately, stories published that year in authors’ new story collections, but not in periodicals, are excluded from consideration. In the anthologies, there are always(?) a few from the NYer, more than from any other periodical–a lot, considering the many dozens of other periodicals they’re drawn from. Overall, their selection *ought to be better than the NYer alone, chosen by experienced readers from thousands. I’m never crazy about all of them. Maybe I need to reread!
Remember, too, that stories in both the NYer and these anthologies are almost all by US and Canadian writers. All tolled, how many of all US/Canadian stories published in a given year will be regarded as enduring classic literature in future generations or centuries? Then how many of *those will have been first published in the NYer? Ha! Let’s take the years 2004 through 2023: At approximately 1000 stories in 20 years of issues, do you suppose there would be enough *great* stories for a fat 50 story anthology? That would be 1 in 20 stories, 5%, 2 or 3 per year. What do you think? More? Less?
So back to my question: What is “New Yorker-grade literature”? What is a NYer grade story? My answer: There *is no standard grade. It’s a mixed bag. Frankly, with all the “great” stories, new *and old, that I continue to find, whether in multi-author anthologies covering 50, 100, 400 years, or the “collected stories” volumes of outstanding classic and contemporary authors, I’m commonly disappointed when I read those in the NYer, and have lately become erratic about reading them. The last one I read, ho hum… Guess I’m spoiled. So I’m now seriously back logged. But I know there are gems every so often, so I keep telling myself I’ll take the time to catch up …but not right now…Maybe if there are more discussions here.
Currently, how can I tear myself away from reading these two big volumes containing the complete stories and novellas of Willa Cather? So great! Unless, for a change, to return to other volumes I’ve been reading lately, by D H Lawrence, Maxim Gorky, and Luigi Pirandello. I’ve been enjoying that era more than the current one these days.
But I really do want to explore the current new fiction. I believe I’ll get back to it soon. It’s experimental, and it’s exciting to discover a gem. I may be influenced by someone saying, “You gotta read this!” But it had better be as good as Lauren Groff’s latest novel, ‘The Vaster Wilds’. I’m spoiled!
Okay, now I’ll actually respond to Gary Emm’s comments on “You Tell Me”, by Clare Sestanovich.
First, Gary: What is your “troll-ery” and “drollery” comment about? I’m guessing it’s a joke I’m missing due to my ignorance!
Much of my response to your comments would be repeating a lot of what I said in the first of my two posts above, which I’ll try not to do–except this: You refer to Janet’s “aging person’s mental lapses”, etc. Because it’s important, I will repeat that I don’t see much indication of that. She’s “older”, somewhat isolated living alone, and set in her ways; but I don’t see her as mentally failing. What has she done that really suggests that?
Interesting that you refer to Janet as the narrator, although the story is third person. I agree. I view the narrator here as a ghost presence exclusively with Janet throughout the story. Considering we are privilege to Janet’s memory, not only what she presently observes, she is effectively the narrator speaking in third person. We don’t learn any more about other characters than she perceives. We mustn’t insist that the narrator should have any knowledge or insight beyond that of the character Janet.
Your explanation of Janet as “the classic unreliable narrator, unreliable even to herself”, and the rest of that paragraph, is unclear to me. I don’t see her as necessarily *especially unreliable, as narrators go. She’s not omniscient, but we don’t know that she’s lying to herself or to us. Regardless, an unreliable narrator isn’t an indication of bad writing.
You asked yourself, “is the story really well written?” Reading the story as Janet’s point of view, how exactly has the author failed?
What is it about Janet’s daughter Rachel that seems like a “device” to you? I never would have thought that. Her phone calls seem to me natural events in the story.
I’m interested that you see the baseball game as “a metaphor”? For what? And do you feel it would be wrong for it to be a metaphor?
Better that fiction writers not explain their work, imo. Let readers take what they will. Good if her comments didn’t help you much! Many writers refuse to comment at all. I wonder if the NYer has writers agree to be interviewed or offer some comment as part of the magazine’s format. Unfair to put them on the spot, I say.
When I started commenting on this story, I had recently discovered Clare’s work and had read all her stories posted online. I found her talented and felt she didn’t deserve the negative reviews she was getting here. The more I looked at “You Tell Me”, the more I appreciated it. If I review it any more, I’m liable to expect it to be in the next fat anthology of Twenty-first Century Short Stories!
I recently acquired a copy of Clare’s debut story collection ‘Objects of Desire’, 2021. Ex-library copy, like new. Isn’t that sad? I’ve read several stories and I like them. I think I’ll read some more now.