{"id":30355,"date":"2024-07-22T08:00:40","date_gmt":"2024-07-22T12:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/?p=30355"},"modified":"2024-07-23T22:56:35","modified_gmt":"2024-07-24T02:56:35","slug":"sarah-braunstein-abject-naturalism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/2024\/07\/22\/sarah-braunstein-abject-naturalism\/","title":{"rendered":"Sarah Braunstein: “Abject Naturalism”"},"content":{"rendered":"

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“Abject Naturalism”<\/strong><\/em><\/span>
\nby Sarah Braunstein<\/span>
\nfrom the July 29, 2024 issue of The New Yorker<\/em><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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\"\"[fusion_dropcap boxed=”no” boxed_radius=”” class=”” id=”” color=”#003366″ hue=”” saturation=”” lightness=”” alpha=”” text_color=””]L[\/fusion_dropcap]ooking back through the archives, I see we have had three prior stories by Sarah Braunstein in\u00a0The New Yorker<\/em>, and it looks like I have enjoyed them. But I’m getting older. I have no strong memory, and that should not be used to evaluate her work. I’m excited to have another opportunity to read her.<\/p>\n

Here is how “Abject Naturalism” begins:<\/p>\n

The baby\u2019s father left before the Cesarean incision had fully healed, when it was still a raised red line, tender to the touch, glistening with Vitamin E oil. Perfidy! This from a man who\u2019d once said he\u2019d die without her, who\u2019d written her piles of letters after she\u2019d rejected him, back in graduate school\u2014though graduate school makes it sound more serious than it was. They\u2019d gone to a university to become fiction writers. The degree took two years. During this time, Toni slept with several of her peers but not with the man who eventually became her child\u2019s father. He left letters in her mailbox about how much this pained him. But he was too odd, she thought, terribly intense, with a work ethic that made her ashamed of her own and a burrowing gaze that at once flattered and repelled. He was skinny and had a ponytail. He carried a briefcase. He didn\u2019t die for lack of her, despite what his letter warned.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I hope you all are having a good week. I look forward to your thoughts on this story below!<\/p>\n

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This week’s New Yorker fiction is Sarah Braunstein’s “Abject Naturalism.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30357,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"libsyn-item-id":0,"libsyn-show-id":0,"libsyn-post-error":"","libsyn-post-error_post-type":"","libsyn-post-error_post-permissions":"","libsyn-post-error_api":"","playlist-podcast-url":"","libsyn-episode-thumbnail":"","libsyn-episode-widescreen_image":"","libsyn-episode-blog_image":"","libsyn-episode-background_image":"","libsyn-post-episode-category-selection":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_use_thumbnail":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_use_theme":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_height":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_width":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_placement":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_use_download_link":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_use_download_link_text":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_custom_color":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-explicit":"","libsyn-post-episode":"","libsyn-post-episode-update-id3":"","libsyn-post-episode-release-date":"","libsyn-post-episode-simple-download":"","libsyn-release-date":"","libsyn-post-update-release-date":"","libsyn-is_draft":"","libsyn-new-media-media":"","libsyn-post-episode-subtitle":"","libsyn-new-media-image":"","libsyn-post-episode-keywords":"","libsyn-post-itunes":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-episode-number":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-season-number":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-episode-type":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-episode-title":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-episode-author":"","libsyn-destination-releases":"","libsyn-post-episode-advanced-destination-form-data":"","libsyn-post-episode-advanced-destination-form-data-enabled":"","libsyn-post-episode-advanced-destination-form-data-input-enabled":false,"libsyn-post-episode-premium_state":"","libsyn-episode-shortcode":"","libsyn-episode-embedurl":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[94,396],"tags":[1461],"coauthors":[505],"class_list":["post-30355","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-new-yorker-fiction","category-sarah-braunstein","tag-2024-new-yorker-fiction"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/Abject-Naturalism.jpg?fit=700%2C400&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pqqvZ-7TB","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30355","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30355"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30355\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30359,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30355\/revisions\/30359"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30357"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30355"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30355"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30355"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=30355"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}