His and Her Stories

From Black Spring by Henry Miller:

"One passes imperceptibly from one scene, one age, one life to another. Suddenly, walking down a street, be it real or be it a dream, one realizes for the first time that the years have flown, that all this has passed forever and will live on only in memory; and then the memory turns inward with a strange, clutching brilliance and one goes over these scenes and incidents perpetually, in dream and reverie, while walking a street, while lying with a woman, while reading a book, while talking to a stranger... suddenly, but always with terrific insistence, rise up like ghosts and permeate every fiber of one's being" (9).


From Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado

"When you think about it, stories have this way of running together like raindrops in a pond. Each is born from the clouds separate, but once they have come together, there is no way to tell them apart" (60 of 663). 



From An American Marriage by Tayari Jones

"Much of life is timing and circumstance, I see that now. Roy came into my life at the time when I needed a man like him. Would I have galloped into this love affair if I had never left Atlanta? I don't know. But how you feel love and understand love are two different things" (138).


These are stories of bodies and memories, of where bodies walk or lie with others or in solitude.

What I valued in Miller's story was the body in relation to physical spaces, particularly New York City and Paris. Reading Black Spring, I could inhabit these spaces in the body of a masculine, often chauvinistic narrator. I found myself mesmerized by his cinematic descriptions of places and characters, but often resisted the condescending way he spoke of his wife and other women.

Carmen Maria Machado's stories were similar in their poetic language and solipsistic characters. Both stories had moments of raw intimacy and eroticism. While Machado's ultrafeminine focus was refreshing, I was not engaged in the narration. Her stories had ghostly presences.

Jones' book was a different experience: I was consumed with interest and absorbed in the narrative. Though I resisted the characters at times, there were many layers of complexity to unpack in this book that show how our relationships are affected by society, family, and individual expectations.