Between the Shadow and the Soul”
by Lauren Groff
from the December 16, 2024 issue of The New Yorker

I love Lauren Groff’s work, and so I’m very excited we are getting a new story from her as we near the end of 2024.

They had lived together for twenty-five years in the old stone house on a bend in the river. They were young when they first saw the place, wildly in love, and so poor they could afford only one of two dwellings in the valley: a battered trailer huddled against the cold wind, and the antique house in the foreclosure, a breath from letting the weeds muscle it back into the earth. Willie had wanted the trailer; when you flicked on the lights there, no shower of sparks fell from knob-and-tube wiring. But Eliza had a vision. We’ll be happy in this house, she said, watching the green river slide through the willows. So they spent the first spring, summer, and fall living in a tend in the largest bedroom, cooking with a propane camper stove, and bathing in the river, and they taught themselves how to shingle the roof, to wire and plumb, to plaster and paint and scrape and refinish. Nearly every penny they made went straight into the house; nearly every spare hour was spent on house projects or finding antiques at yard sales and in thrift stores and bringing them back to life.

I must say that even after that long first paragraph, I am not sure what we have in store for us. But I’m okay with that. I have learned to trust Groff, and so I look forward to finishing this.

Please feel free to comment below!

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