{"id":30361,"date":"2024-07-29T21:37:32","date_gmt":"2024-07-30T01:37:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/?p=30361"},"modified":"2026-05-09T12:25:27","modified_gmt":"2026-05-09T16:25:27","slug":"nell-freudenberger-attila","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/2024\/07\/29\/nell-freudenberger-attila\/","title":{"rendered":"Nell Freudenberger: “Attila”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

“Attila”<\/strong><\/span>
by Nell Freudenberger<\/span>
from the August 5, 2024 issue of The New Yorker<\/em><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Back in 2010 Nell Freudenberger was one of The New Yorker’s “20 Under 40,” and that’s when I read her story “An Arranged Marriage.” I don’t remember it specifically, but from my old post<\/a> it doesn’t appear that I liked it that much. Indeed, I placed it in the bottom five<\/a> of the twenty stories that were published. I haven’t read any of her novels published since (The Dissident<\/em> from 2012, Lost and Wanted<\/em> from 2019, and The Limits<\/em> from just a few months ago). I’d be very curious how folks like those books, and I’m glad for an opportunity, nearly 14 years after the last time, to read more of her work in the magazine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here is how this one begins:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Martha got the knife away from her mother and shut her in the garage. The garage was not for cars; it had been converted by the house\u2019s previous owners into what the broker called a \u201cmother-in-law apartment.\u201d Martha assumed it was called that because mothers were more likely to move in with daughters, and men were more likely to own houses. She wasn\u2019t married, though, and her sister, Molly, who was, didn\u2019t have a mother-in-law apartment in her garage in Los Angeles, where real estate was much more expensive than it was in Baltimore. Also, Molly was busy with her children and hadn\u2019t spoken to their mother in more than a year.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

I look forward to reading it! Please leave any comments below!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This week’s New Yorker fiction is Nell Freudenberger’s “Attila.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":31149,"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":[534,94],"tags":[1461],"coauthors":[505],"class_list":["post-30361","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nell-freudenberger","category-new-yorker-fiction","tag-2024-new-yorker-fiction"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/August-5-2024-Featured-Image.jpg?fit=700%2C400&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pqqvZ-7TH","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30361","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=30361"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30361\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31156,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30361\/revisions\/31156"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31149"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30361"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30361"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30361"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=30361"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}