{"id":28961,"date":"2021-05-24T13:43:16","date_gmt":"2021-05-24T17:43:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/?p=28961"},"modified":"2021-05-24T13:43:16","modified_gmt":"2021-05-24T17:43:16","slug":"said-sayrafiezadeh-a-s-d-f","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/2021\/05\/24\/said-sayrafiezadeh-a-s-d-f\/","title":{"rendered":"Sa\u00efd Sayrafiezadeh: “A, S, D, F”"},"content":{"rendered":"

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“A, S, D, F”<\/strong><\/span>
\nby Sa\u00efd Sayrafiezadeh<\/span>
\nfrom the May 31, 2021 issue of\u00a0The New Yorker<\/em><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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\"\"[fusion_dropcap boxed=”no” boxed_radius=”” class=”” id=”” color=”#003366″ text_color=””]I[\/fusion_dropcap]t’s been a while since we had a story from Sayrafiezadeh, though if I think back on the early days of tracking The New Yorker fiction on this site it feels he was a regular. Looking back, I see we had a story from him in 2010, 2011, 2012. His debut story collection, Brief Encounters with the Enemy<\/em>, came out in 2013 and was a finalist for the PEN\/Robert W. Bingham Award, the PEN America Literary Award for a debut story collection. We got another story in\u00a02014, but since then it’s been slower — at least in the pages of The New Yorker<\/em> — with just one\u00a0in 2018.<\/p>\n

Sayrafiezadeh has a new collection,\u00a0American Estrangement<\/em>, coming out in August. This — along with this week’s story — is great, welcome news. I think Sayrafiezadeh is a great writer, and I am glad to see that after eight years we are getting a new collection. I’m excited to see what we’ll get.<\/p>\n

“A, S, D, F” takes place in Aspen where our narrator is employed in an art gallery, essentially getting paid to do nothing.<\/p>\n

\n

By the time six o\u2019clock is about to roll around, I\u2019m beginning to wonder if working in an art gallery is taking some sort of toll on my psyche. One part of the problem is that I haven\u2019t done anything all day, since there hasn\u2019t been anything to do, and the other part of the problem is something I can\u2019t quite name yet. This is the moment when the owner emerges from his back office\u2014three minutes before six\u2014holding a two-page handwritten letter that he needs me to type right now, because there\u2019s a collector on the West Coast who might be interested in \u201cUntitled X.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOne more thing before you go,\u201d he says, as if the list of today\u2019s tasks has been long.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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\u201cI\u2019d be happy to,\u201d I tell him. I\u2019m full of good cheer and work ethic. I was hired a month ago, and I want the owner to think of me as a team player\u2014but the truth is I don\u2019t get\u00a0paid for overtime.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

This opening is nothing showy, but I’m invested already and happy to follow along . . . though that will have to come a bit later!<\/p>\n

While there have been many stories in\u00a0The New Yorker<\/em> that I’ve been anxious to read, I’ve been falling behind since early April (and even then I was trying to catch up). I need to dig in because I don’t want to miss this one. I’m looking forward to hearing what you think, too, so please let me know in the comments.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n