My Dear You
Welcome to the third installment of our summer short-story series, where we’re meeting up every other week over video to discuss a new collection. This week, we discuss My Dear You by Rachel Khong.
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JULY 14, 2026
My Dear You
This conversation has been edited for clarity. Please note, it may still contain some transcription errors.
Andrew Womack: Hello, and welcome to our third installment of our Summer Reading Book Tournament—this Summer Shorts thing, name TBD. This time we’re going to be discussing My Dear You by Rachel Khong. Leading this discussion will be Rosecrans Baldwin, who has read the book—I have not. That doesn’t really play into the gameplay in any way whatsoever; I just haven’t read the book. Rosecrans will kick us off by talking about his favorite stories from the book and his impressions of them, and then we’ll hand it off to everyone else to line up and tell us what you think of the book, as well as the stories in it. So make sure to use the raise-hand function, talk amongst yourselves, or talk to us in the chat. Take it away, Rosecrans.
Rosecrans Baldwin: Thank you, Andrew. Yeah, so this week we are discussing My Dear You by Rachel Khong. I don’t have one favorite story, but there were a bunch of stories in here I really liked. I would say—we do not need me doing an impression of an Asian American woman—but this is very much about what life is like as an Asian American woman at different ages, different periods of life, different eras, different life circumstances. For me, my impression was that this was a really fun book to read. I moved through this one fast, and I had to slow it down. Granted, I finished reading it about two weeks ago, and similar to other conversations we’ve been having this summer, in preparation for this evening I was like, well, what do I remember? And which is the story that really stuck with me the most? Two stories really stood out in terms of—I’ve been thinking about them, I’ve been talking about them with friends. I was talking about one of them in particular with a friend of mine who is Asian American—she’s also single in her forties, and she’s on dating apps—and we talked about the story “The Family O.” But that is not the story that stood out to me the most. The one I’ve really been coming back to was called “Serene.” This is about a woman who works in a factory that manufactures dolls—in particular, let’s call them companion dolls. She gets a promotion of sorts at work to begin talking to a doll who’s at a more advanced level, one that can actually have conversation. Because she’s fluent in English, she’s tasked with speaking to that doll—the doll’s name is Serene—and sort of educating her, and they begin to develop a relationship. I’m just summarizing the story in case anyone didn’t read it, but I’m also trying to give us some grounds to talk about it with. There’s a customer who’s interested in purchasing Serene, and the young woman, the narrator, has been criticized for not selling enough of these dolls. She’s able to sell this doll to the client, but spoiler alert—she ends up purchasing the doll for herself. Whereas before that, she’d been saving up money to purchase cosmetic surgery for herself, to appear a certain way. In any case, I’ve been thinking about this story because, like a lot of the stories in this collection, it’s—someone in the chat said this book was not bleak, and that’s for sure my experience of it. It was buoyant, and at times mordant, at times a little doomy, but there’s an electricity to things, a lightness. All the stories operate at a clip—I just kept going, and it’s very propulsive. I just got sucked into the relationship between the doll and the woman in this story, who end up on a beach together, just having a nice time. I’m on vacation. Yeah, I think this was a story that had its hooks in me because of the propulsiveness of the plot, but also because—this story, in my opinion, and several of the stories in here, the finish is the floor dropping out from underneath you. Whether you see it coming or not, it’s just like, oh, OK, that’s how that story ends. Some of the stories don’t do that, but several of them do. I felt eager to move on, but this is the story that really stuck with me.
Andrew Womack: I see Carrie has a comment in the chat about the wild dating app. I want to know what the wild dating app story RK mentioned in the notes was—was there a real fish guy?
Rosecrans Baldwin: Hold on, I’ve got to look at that to understand what on earth you just said. The wildlife story Carrie mentioned in the notes was—was there a real fish guy? I mean, good question, but wait—in the notes was... I don’t know! That’s a good question. Was there a real fish guy? Does someone know, have the answer to that? Is this a true story? OK, I don’t know—I would hop onto Google or an AI right now to find out. But if there was a real fish guy, holy cow, that’s a wild story. If this is news to anybody, I think we’re referring to “The Family O” story, is that correct? In which there’s a gentleman who seems to date only Asian American or Asian women—he learns their languages, goes to almost the same restaurant, and orders the same things, but orders it in these women’s languages. She says “unforgettable online dandy”—OK, I don’t—shoot! Thanks, Carrie, I appreciate the info. We should have reached out to Rachel Khong to get verification on this one. I kind of wish we did. But good question.
Andrew Womack: All right, so to get started, if anyone wants to volunteer their thoughts on the collection, just raise your hands. And if anybody knows anything about the dating app story and the fish guy, please jump in. All right, so first up we’ve got a K—wait, wait, wait, we’ve got two Ks.
Rosecrans Baldwin: Judy went first, then Kay Nelson and Kay Hardtmann.
Andrew Womack: All right. So, Judy—you’re on mute, by the way. Let me...
Judy Morris: There we go.
Andrew Womack: There, awesome.
Judy Morris: I first have a question, and that is—the story where the woman meets the guy she knew in college. They worked at the library together, and they both became writers, and they left each other little notes with books, and then they come back and they’re sort of reconnecting. And then he gives her a slip of paper that she puts in her pocket, and she reads later, and it’s “Nadia...” and I didn’t know what it meant. I was just wondering.
Rosecrans Baldwin: Judy, great question. I’m struggling to remember which story that was. Does anyone—anyone who’s raised their hand, or just hop off mute? Lauren?
Lauren Oertel: I’ll jump in. Yeah, so that connected to when they were teenagers and they played Spin the Bottle for seven minutes in heaven, and he had said that he’d drawn her name. It’s not revealed until the end that he’d drawn somebody else’s name. So their initial connection—that awkward teenage connection—was him lying about where things landed, and years later that was a way of showing, hey, I chose you, from the beginning. So I thought that was a pretty cool ending.
Judy Morris: Well, that was really a cool ending, and I missed the whole thing—I can’t believe that. OK, thank you, that really helps me a lot. I think my favorite story was “The Family O,” because I just felt that she likes the guy, and she had all these women telling her to do all this stuff, and then when it was all over and she reached out to be friends, none of them wanted to meet with her, none of them wanted to be her friend, and I think she was questioning what she had done.
Rosecrans Baldwin: Was the ending a surprise for you?
Judy Morris: That he came up at the—yes, I mean—don’t you think that’s a big coincidence, that he just so happened to come up to the pool where she teaches swimming? That was a coincidence, but I thought it was an interesting way that maybe there was a chance they would continue. I mean, Rachel Khong is married to a white guy—yeah, she’s married to a white guy—so she must think it can happen, because it has happened, it’s happened to her. But I just thought that was an interesting story. There are two things I came away from this book with. One is that I’m really glad I’m not an Asian woman trying to make it in America, because I think they have a tough time—there’s a lot of bias they have to deal with, and she shows that. And the other thing is that short stories are incredible—that someone can make something so full of things to talk about and think about in twenty-five pages, and it takes such skill to do that. I have a totally new respect for people who write short stories. So, I’m done.
Rosecrans Baldwin: That’s very cool. Thank you, Judy.
Andrew Womack: OK, next we’ve got Kay Nelson.
Kay Nelson: Well, I actually want to piggyback off what Judy just said, because I’ve always loved short stories—I just think you have to be so smart and creative to do all that in such a short period of time. Interestingly enough, I have several friends who don’t like short stories—they want to know more, I don’t know—but I was so happy when this whole summer tournament of books was short stories, and they’re all good collections so far. I really, really liked this book a lot, and I liked all the stories—if you had to ask me if there was one I didn’t like, I don’t think I would say I have any. But the one I just love, love, love is the “D Day” one, which I only read this morning, and I was so happy about it. I was like, this—she needs to make this into a book, someone needs to make it into a miniseries, someone needs to make it into a movie, because I just thought the possibilities were endless, and the reactions people could have being faced with this choice, being faced with the end of humanity as we know it. I thought it was really interesting how Jade and—what’s the other girl’s name?—Jade and Ruby, they remained friends to the end, but yet they kind of continued their lives. They went to a few parties, but other people, I think, were going really, really crazy and spending all their money. I just thought it was so, so interesting. And then I just loved the ending of the story, how there was a little glitch with God at the end, and those last thoughts in their minds—I just loved this, I can’t even tell you how much. I just thought it was perfect. So...
Rosecrans Baldwin: Andrew, I know you didn’t read the book, so just to fill you in—this is the final story in the collection, and basically God has decided that humanity needs to stop being human, and everyone’s going to choose to be another animal, and D Day is the decision day—when you have to decide. So, Kay, hate to put you on the spot: if you’re going to choose to be something else post-D Day, what are you choosing?
Kay Nelson: Well, I actually did think about that, as I hope other people did too. My favorite animal is a panda, so I kind of went there. But then I was thinking, well, do you want to be a cat? I actually had the same thought about being a domestic animal as someone did—one girl’s mother, I think, was choosing to become a dog, or a poodle. And even before that happened, I was thinking along the lines of, you maybe don’t want to be a domesticated animal, because there’s no one to take care of you. So I think I’m going to go with a panda, but I also think I could think about this for hours more and maybe have a different answer. So.
Rosecrans Baldwin: I thought one of the funniest aspects of that story is, as the end days were coming, like you pointed out, Jade and Ruby were kind of just still enjoying their friendship. Other people were partying, but there’s a line about how the caterers, the service people who were attending to everybody else, were the skeptics—like, “who cares, I’ll just catch the tips while I still can, because this isn’t going to happen.” That’s just a comment, not a question.
Kay Nelson: Yeah, no, I know.
Rosecrans Baldwin: Well, thanks, Kay.
Andrew Womack: I’m gonna interject real quick and say that’s just a brilliant concept, I love that, that is so cool. And also, I do want to note—Erin has chosen a keystone species, which is good, because you’ve got job security as an otter, right?
Erin Cooper: So there’s not a species that has fun like an otter has fun.
Andrew Womack: Otters have fun?
Erin Cooper: Otters have a ton of fun.
Andrew Womack: Let’s go—water. Next is, OK—Kay Hardtmann, you’re next on our list.
Kay Hardtmann: OK, so “D Day” was also a great story, obviously. I finished that story and came down to the kitchen where my son and husband were hanging out, and I told them about it, and then, of course, they started a giant argument about what animal they’d become—they all went for dinosaurs. Yeah, I’m like, OK. I thought crow or raven—companionship, a community, you get to hang out with the crew, you get to have fun. I would have gone for a corvid. But...
Rosecrans Baldwin: Yeah, what story stuck with you?
Kay Hardtmann: The first—well, no, the second, I think, “The Freshening.” The one where you get injected and all of a sudden you don’t see race or gender. Umm—it was just, I mean, what a weird world that would be. I mean, think about it—that part where they’re talking to the man in the street afterward, and she’s watching the news and she’s like, “oh, there’s an Asian woman in a wife-beater and gold teeth,” you know, doing—being like, “man, I’m not even being pulled over.” It was just... I think she has such a great imagination. I don’t think any of the stories were—there were no duds in this collection. But I also would—the other story I really liked was the one where, at the beginning, they have to decide tiger or ghost. What do you want hunting you? And I just—I’ve been thinking about that since. Like, a tiger can only attack you physically, but a ghost can make you chop your own arm off.
Rosecrans Baldwin: Kay, I think one of the things you said there is something I’ve been thinking about, which is that a lot of this book—the stories are very conceptual, they lead off from a really interesting idea, a really interesting question or concept. How would you rank that in terms of the appeal of the book, of the collection, for you? Where does that rank? What did you value about the collection the most?
Kay Hardtmann: See, normally that type of high-concept thing, that interesting idea, doesn’t work for me, because you have to put a heart in there—in the end it has to be a story about people. And I think Khong manages to do that, so you’re getting these wild ideas, and you’re like, whoa! And then it’s really just a story—you know, “D Day” is about a friendship, and “The Freshening” is about our relationships with each other, and it just—it was a very relational book. I mean, the first story, “My Dear You,” was about grief for a lost husband, so—she keeps it very... it’s still just about people, but the ideas are just fun to play with in your mind, too.
Rosecrans Baldwin: Well, thank you, and nice to see your cat is back.
Kay Hardtmann: Yeah, she heard there was going to be filming, and she decided to participate.
Rosecrans Baldwin: Yeah, well, we respect and appreciate that.
Andrew Womack: I just saw—“The Freshening” is going to be a movie, or it’s going to be filmed in some way. I didn’t see in what capacity, what format it was going to take, but there’s a Variety article on it, if you want to check that out and get excited. OK. In other news, I just watched Margo’s Got Money Troubles—
Rosecrans Baldwin: Oh, look at that!
Andrew Womack: It was good, it was really good—if you haven’t watched it, it was really good, well done. What’d you say?
Rosecrans Baldwin: Drugs.
Andrew Womack: Does anyone know what we’re talking about if we say it was drugs? OK, good—it was drugs. It really, really worked. OK, good, everyone’s like, no—OK, I’m glad you do. OK, and over to Lauren—tell us what’s new.
Lauren Oertel: All right, I’m happy to be here. I originally had a conflict for tonight, so I was about to return the audiobook copy of this, but I asked in our Goodreads group real quick—hey, I’m not going to be able to make it to the conversation, is it worth still reading? And Allison, who I don’t think is here, said yes, she really loves this collection—at least read the last story. So I started with “D Day,” and in the first minute I was like, is this too cheesy for me? I don’t know if I’m in the mood for this. And then I just fell right into it and totally loved it. There were so many lines that really resonated—the Ocean Vuong thing, she wished she were Ocean Vuong too, not because he was famous, but because he no longer had to justify his existence. And then, toward the end of that story, the contemplation of how the world was too good and too magnificent for any human to take in, and that’s why we have this myopia and violence—humans couldn’t handle their insignificance. And then, of course, the friendship part, and what does God know of pain, but he also doesn’t know of the best experience, which was having a friend like Jade. It was so heartwarming. Ultimately I did read the rest of them on audio, and I said before that short story collections are notoriously difficult to read on audio, and this collection was absolutely an exception—I think it’s just the direct style of the writing; it just worked so well on audio. So I don’t feel like I missed out at all by not having the print copy of this one. And then, as already brought up in the beginning, after two very heavy books to start off the summer, this was a nice, refreshing, very pleasant, lovely read, and I really enjoyed it. So I’d say “D Day” is probably my number one. The animal I would want to be—I’ve always loved wolves, so, like, wolf pack, not the lone wolf, but the pack. But then, crows and ravens—big fan of that as well. But I also kind of figure, if humans are gone, the earth is going to be so lush and healthy, and you’re not going to have to worry about a lot of the things animals have to worry about now. So I think, like, most picks, you’re going to be good. Yeah.
Rosecrans Baldwin: I think that’s now become a question everyone’s going to have to answer. But before that, Lauren, just a quick question—that lightness of the prose that you were suggesting made it really successful as an audiobook, does that... how does that impact, influence, the depth, the meaning, the ideas? Does it make it feel a little... I don’t know, does it affect it at all?
Lauren Oertel: Hmm, good question. While I do prefer pretty literary styles, I feel like this was still literary enough in the depth of the themes explored—it wasn’t just all about plot, action, action. So I feel like the high-concept ideas, and the more genre or commercial aspect of it, made it a pretty quick read, and easier to take in than some of the craftier stuff we might have gotten into, at least in the first two books. I think it’s just a different style—could this fit under upmarket, which I know not everyone loves? I tend to also enjoy upmarket, which Margo’s Got Money Troubles might count as. Yeah, so it might be around there, but for me it was still valuable and worth my time.
Rosecrans Baldwin: Awesome, thank you.
Andrew Womack: OK, and next we have Bryn.
Bryn Lerud: Hello. So, Lauren, you used the word “cheesy” when you said you first started reading it—was that your first impression? But this was my least favorite of these three books, because the speculative—now I feel dumb, though, because everybody loves the book so much. But, yeah, it just wasn’t really my thing—I guess I like the serious books. But I did like a few of the stories, so some of the speculative stuff just really didn’t do it for me. Although I did really like this story that’s called—see, it’s called “Tapetum Lucidum.” It’s the one about the husband and wife who get a cat, and her sister is telling her that—she’s also trying to get pregnant, so her sister’s telling her, you shouldn’t have cats around if you’re going to get pregnant. She goes to the vet, and a lot of different things happen, but then at the end she starts seeing ghosts of everybody in her life. I just really loved that pairing of “tapetum lucidum”—I just love that word, it means “shining layer” in Latin, and it refers to the layer cats have on their eyes that reflects the light, so that when you look at cats in the dark, or almost dark, they have really shiny eyes. And just that, paired with the ghosts, was—I just really liked that image. So that was my favorite one. But my favorite line in the whole book was from “Colors from Elsewhere,” where the woman finds out that she’s an alien, and she finds out that she can’t ever have kids, but she could go back to her home planet, where all they listen to is EDM. I thought that was hilarious.
Rosecrans Baldwin: Bryn, can I ask—because the speculative isn’t always the first place you go as a reading taste, but in that story you cited, I feel like the back half of the story is cluttered with ectoplasm—I mean, she can... around the house without running into somebody who’s...
Bryn Lerud: I know, I’m a walking contradiction.
Rosecrans Baldwin: I don’t know, but I’m wondering, for you—did it just feel less speculative? Did it ring a chord for you in a certain way that felt more somehow semi-realistic? I’m wondering, can you pin down what worked for you about that?
Bryn Lerud: I like ghost stories, and I do like speculative fiction—I mean, I like science fiction, I’m reading a trilogy right now that’s—I don’t know if it’s fantasy or science fiction, but I like it. I guess it’s the far-fetchedness of it—ghosts are not far-fetched, right? Ghosts are everywhere. That’s sort of how it made me feel, though—that ghosts are something I can read about and have fun with, whereas other things, like turning into animals, it wasn’t fun for me to think about that, or read that story—even though I get the point of it, that we’re destroying the earth and people are going to have to go away and it’s just going to be animals. And then the first one—I also really didn’t enjoy the speculative part. I mean, the whole shtick with her going to heaven, and picking how she looks, and picking what sports she wants to play, and—what else does she do? She learns how to play racquetball, and she throws pots, and—I understand the point of that story was that she really loved her husband and wanted to see him again, and then she did. But it just took too long to get there. I did not explain that very well for you. But I also wanted to say that my son is white, and he’s married to a Chinese woman, and she’s been here for, I don’t know, fifteen or twenty years, since she graduated from college. She’s had some really hard times, especially during COVID—she wouldn’t leave the house, she wouldn’t go shopping for years after COVID, because she was so afraid of going out. It’s not easy—and some white, old white guy was trying to pick her up in an elevator at my other son’s wedding, because we were all dressed up and she’s gorgeous, and—it’s not a good thing.
Rosecrans Baldwin: OK, well, thanks, Bryn.
Bryn Lerud: Sure, yeah.
Andrew Womack: Thank you, Bryn. And next, Erin Cooper, the floor is yours.
Erin Cooper: Yeah, I want to say—Bryn, I disagree with you, but I’ll push back when you say it makes you feel stupid. I don’t think you should ever feel stupid for liking or not liking something. But I loved this collection—it definitely worked for me. I think it’s because she does a really great job of threading the needle between something that’s so weird—like, all of the stories are deeply weird, but also sweet. I thought this book was really serious. In “D Day”—and I’m a zoologist, so “what animal would you be” isn’t the first time I’ve had this discussion—but what I really thought was the heart of it is this woman realizing that her friend doesn’t see them being together for the rest of their lives, and she’s grieving not just her life as a human, but her friend, the strongest relationship in her life. That they’re not picking what animal they’re going to be together, I think, is so... that was really hard, I thought. And “The Freshening,” where you get this injection and you only see people who look like you—I mean, I thought that read as extremely dystopian. I thought that was terrifying, in a low-background, horror-type way. Am I the only person who read it that way? Like, only seeing white women for the rest of my life? That sounds like a horror movie, right? And I loved when—oh my god—when they’re at the party and everybody’s seeing everyone’s real race, and people are getting into these fights, and she gives you no information about anybody’s actual appearance, gender, race, or anything. All you know is that they’re fighting—they’re seeing something they’ve never seen before, but you don’t know what it is, but you know this is a rift in the relationship she’s watching. But it’s also very funny, right? So I think this collection is so good because the stories are weird and funny—like, how do you write a funny story about a sex doll? That’s not an easy thing to do. That story is dark in a lot of ways—she has to sell that doll to a bad man, right? But they’re still funny and light, and it’s not a bleak collection in any way, as somebody said. That’s really where I think the magic was. I think it’s hard for a short story—I love short stories, but I think a short story collection is often hard to hold together, like, are they all kind of on the same theme, or are they all so different that it’s like, why am I reading these things together? And this collection—every story definitely stands alone, but it also felt like they work so well together as a collection, too. So, yeah, I was so happy to be reading this, and I read it too fast, and then kind of regretted how fast I’d read it, and I want to go back and rediscover each of these stories for the first time again.
Rosecrans Baldwin: Yeah. I don’t know if I can go back to Cleveland and not think of it as the land of Cleve, and wonder who Cleve is. So, if you were thinking about what ties these stories together in this book—if you were talking to a friend tomorrow—what would unite it for you, or what’s the tone when you step back a second from the book? What stands out the most for you?
Erin Cooper: That is not an easy question to answer, I don’t think—maybe people have an obvious answer to that that I don’t see, but I think that if I were recommending this, I feel like—how I felt with each story was that each story, in its speculative nature, is looking at the world with some kind of fresh eyes that I had never thought to see the world with, and then exploring that idea for however many pages, and then leaving you with that premise. A good short story, I feel, leaves you with a premise that you keep thinking about, and all of these stories—the premise was so clever, and everything was unexpected—every new story was fully unexpected. That, to me, was what they sort of hung on as a set.
Rosecrans Baldwin: Great, perfect. Well, thanks, Erin, awesome.
Andrew Womack: Now it’s over to Kate M.
Kate M: Hello! For me, these stories were all, in a sense, about loss—which is perhaps an odd way to look at them, but every one of them was a loss of a relationship, a loss of a past, a loss of something at one level or another. “D Day,” which I thought was a great story, was still about a loss—I think you said, sort of, of the friendship, and the fact that these two people, in fact, were not going to have their friendship and be together—it was more important to make their own individual choices. And that was sort of a loss of something. So each of these stories, for me, was losing, in an odd way. I think the two stories I liked best, because they’re such an odd pair, were “Good Spirits” and “My Dear You,” because they were both about grieving something that could have been. “My Dear You,” I thought, was a really haunting story, because the woman had lost the love of her life and couldn’t even remember him when he reappeared. And that was, for me, a really haunting thing—that heaven is not about having the people you love, it’s about being in such a totally different world that none of this matters anymore. And that’s kind of a scary proposition for me. And I felt that way about a lot of the stories—that they were going to unsettling places and saying unsettling things. Now, I am a genre fiction fan, and part of what I was thinking—I tossed this into the comments—was that these would have been very different stories if they’d been written by someone more on the genre side. They would have been more plot-focused, there would have been a more definite arc, rather than the arc about people. So, for me, part of it was thinking, well, if you gave this concept to a fantasy writer, what’s the story they would write? Because it would be very different. So, anyway, I thought it was a really fascinating collection. I enjoyed it—even the stories I wasn’t fond of made me think.
Rosecrans Baldwin: Kate, if I can ask something—I think maybe this was inside my question for Erin, which was maybe not about the tone but the emotional register. I put this book down when I finished, and I thought that one of the things that tied all the stories together for me was that it was like the tone, or the register, was somehow—you know when you’re really sad, and you cry, and maybe you’re with a friend, and you get to the end of the crying, and then you just start laughing, but you’re still wiped out from the crying? And the laughter is kind of a response to that, but there’s still that mordant sort of humor. That, for me, was—I was like, OK, that’s what this book is for me emotionally. How would you describe it?
Kate M: I would... I think if you press me to nail down an emotional register on it, I think I would say absolute grief, being dealt with bravely.
Rosecrans Baldwin: Sure. OK, which is maybe...
Kate M: Maybe in the same ballpark, but a bit different.
Rosecrans Baldwin: Listen, we’re not fucking around with this collection. I like that, that’s great. OK, well, thank you, Kate, appreciate it.
Andrew Womack: I thought this was the one that wasn’t bleak.
Rosecrans Baldwin: It’s not bleak, it’s not bleak. It’s real—I mean, it’s not real, it’s very surreal, but it’s...
Kate M: It’s quirky. And so, because—do you remember Rejection? Did you read Rejection? Which went to places one would not have thought a book could go, and then it went further. In its own way, for me, this played with that concept—let’s take something and spin it way off the wheels. And at the end, the person in the—the difference is, with the last collection, the people were sad at the end of the stories, and in this collection, the people are not sad at the end of the story, so I, as a reader, don’t have to be sad, even though I feel that’s what the story is about.
Rosecrans Baldwin: That’s really well put, yeah.
Andrew Womack: Thank you. And we have Peggy M, our final hand.
Peggy M: Hey, everyone. So this time I read three stories—I read “Serene,” which was the sex doll story, “Colors from Elsewhere,” which was the miscarriage-discovery-that-you’re-an-alien story, and then “D Day.” I liked all of them. Rosecrans, I thought you really captured it when you talked about the electricity and lightness in the prose—that’s a really good description. I thought the author just never put a foot wrong, and every story was packed with perfectly balanced moments. But, you know, I thought “D Day” was delightful, but for me, sort of the stories that have a parable or fable feel, that are more of a thematic exploration than traditional plot and character development—it’s not to my taste, I like more immersive realism in my stories. Like with “Serene,” I was thinking, well, I would love to see what Ted Chiang did with that idea—a more serious investigation of what we do when our technology begins to equal us or mirror us. But I really was very impressed by the writing—it was excellent, and I thought “D Day” was delightful.
Rosecrans Baldwin: Peggy, forgive me for not having a great memory on this one, but do I remember correctly that either you tell your sister which stories to read, or your sister tells you which stories to read?
Peggy M: I don’t have time to read the whole collection, so Kate picks out a story for me—but these were short, and she gave me three to read, and I enjoyed all of them.
Rosecrans Baldwin: OK, great. And based on what you’ve heard so far today, if all the time in the universe opened up tomorrow, would you dig into the rest of the book?
Peggy M: You know, it’s just not my favorite style of story, so—Rachel Khong has written a great book, and she certainly deserves her readers, and yeah, sure, I’d read the rest of it, but it’s not what I look for in fiction. I want to be swept away on a magic carpet ride—I want to just live in that world and feel everything the characters feel. And this book is doing something else.
Rosecrans Baldwin: And if I can, one last question—how would you describe what this book is doing?
Peggy M: Well, it’s—it’s investigating idea stories, and, as somebody said, putting the heart in them—we care about these characters, but it doesn’t have the texture of daily life.
Rosecrans Baldwin: Right. Well, thanks, Peggy.
Andrew Womack: Thank you, Peggy. And yeah—if anyone has any other further comments, you can raise a hand, or just take yourself off mute if you have anything else you want to add. I know there’s also been a lot of comment going on in the back channel—people talking about Rosecrans, and they’re not—they’re not talking about you in the chat. No, no, it’s all good—just some further discussion about some of the points that were brought up throughout. I don’t know if anyone wants to touch on any of those—if you made any of the comments and you want to surface them to everyone here, please feel free to say it.
Lauren Oertel: I had one quick counterpoint to what—was it Peggy?—just said, about it not having the realness or specifics of daily life. In “D Day,” I noticed that when the main character was talking about the years of friendship, it was, “at twelve, we were learning to freak dance together, and at eighteen, we were holding our hair back from puking up too many jello shots.” And I was like, oh, I think this author is my same generation—those specifics really worked for me. But anyway, that’s fine.
Andrew Womack: That’s cool—I just realized this is like the live comment section, so we’re threading it. Does anyone have a comment to attach to Lauren’s? Anyone else?
Rosecrans Baldwin: Do you want to talk about your jello shot days, Andrew?
Andrew Womack: I could, yeah—I don’t think it would have been with you, was it?
Rosecrans Baldwin: No, that’s what I was wondering—maybe we did them, I don’t...
Andrew Womack: Like in Williamsburg, maybe—probably went to a jello shot bar. Right, that sounds about right.
Rosecrans Baldwin: Jellies? Yeah.
Andrew Womack: Yeah, that’s what that was.
Rosecrans Baldwin: Andrew and I lived in Brooklyn at a time when there was a bar called Cokie’s—they weren’t shy about calling themselves that, and also letting you know that they openly sold cocaine. Things you could get away with at a certain period of time. Anyway.
Andrew Womack: Kate has questions—hit him. Take it away, Kate.
Kate M: One of the questions I wondered about, because we were talking about stories and reading them and not reading them—we’ve read three collections now, at least some people have—if you were going to read another collection by one of those three authors, which one would you pick?
Rosecrans Baldwin: While everyone’s thinking, Kate, what’s your response to the question?
Kate M: I don’t have one, which is why I asked the question. But I was thinking, oddly enough, it would probably be Brawler.
Rosecrans Baldwin: Yeah, the Lauren Groff. Andrew, you want to—or anyone can just hop in, you don’t have to, Kay, you put your hand up, but just please chime in.
Kay Nelson: Yeah, no—this one, Rachel Khong, I would read another collection of hers without a doubt.
Rosecrans Baldwin: Yep, I’m going to jump on that bandwagon too. For me, it was just the lucidity of the prose, the ideas, but as it’s been put tonight, the heart at the center of everything, and the fact that each story was about loss, about relationships, about trying to find your way in the world versus what society expects of you, or what people on dating apps expect of you, et cetera, et cetera. This really worked for me. Andrew Womack—
Erin Cooper: I, I—
Rosecrans Baldwin: Based on what you’ve—oh, sorry.
Erin Cooper: Sorry.
Rosecrans Baldwin: Go, go.
Erin Cooper: I haven’t read the other two collections yet, because I’m at the whims of when things come in from my public library, but I do read a ton of short stories, and I loved not only individual stories but this whole collection, and I would 100%—I wouldn’t commit to a world where I had to pick only one short story author to read, but if I saw another collection on the shelf from her, I would pick it up in an instant.
Bryn Lerud: Lauren Groff has another collection of short stories, Florida, which—I just remember loving that collection even more than Brawler. I liked Brawler.
Judy Morris: It’s true. Lauren Groff is in The New Yorker... and—I’m sorry, I know I’m the only Tóibín person here, but I like Tóibín—I liked his short stories, and I like his writing. So—I would probably read any of the three. I think they all brought something different to the table.
Erin Cooper: I am really looking forward to the Tóibín collection, in part because I saw him speak a few months ago.
Judy Morris: Oh, wow.
Erin Cooper: Oh, man—it was, like, a cliché Irish tradition, a fantastic storyteller who told these stories that kind of go somewhere else and then come back around, but it was like watching a collection of short stories develop as he was giving his talk, and it was so good. So I’m really looking forward to reading those, whenever they become available to me.
Bryn Lerud: Erin, I also saw him speak—years and years ago—but he did a lecture on the history of Irish literature.
Erin Cooper: God.
Bryn Lerud: I love Irish literature.
Erin Cooper: Yeah, and I really love his novels, too, and I think his—
Bryn Lerud: I do too.
Erin Cooper:—little gem side-notes in them—I’m highly anticipating this collection. Don’t tell me any spoilers, but...
Kay Hardtmann: Thank you.
Bryn Lerud: I like it.
Andrew Womack: OK, cool. Well, I feel like I have two other books to read now, because I definitely want to read the Groff, and now I really want to read this one, because the Khong just sounds—this sounds incredible. And, you know, I’m not sure—I’ve been talking up Python’s Kiss a lot—every single time, because it blew my mind. But I feel like this is probably on the same level, or just in the same kind of speculative, far-out kind of take that some of those have. So now I’ve got twice as many books to read, so that’s good.
Kay Nelson: So I would say I usually don’t like speculative fiction, so the fact that I really like this is interesting—and I have already read Python’s Kiss. But we’ll save that for two weeks’ time, for my comments on it.
Andrew Womack: OK. Well, if anyone has anything else, please feel free to wrench the mic from my hands.
Bryn Lerud: Well, I’m getting better at reading short stories—I’ve really been trying hard to remember each one. I’ve been taking notes on them now, so I remember each individual story, at least a few things from each one, so I can identify it. So I feel like I’m enjoying reading short stories more now. But now I have to read Python’s Kiss again, because I read it, like, a month ago. But I’m not complaining.
Andrew Womack: This time I’m taking notes—I did not take notes for the Tóibín, and I regret it. And then I’d be on Judy’s wavelength at that point, but instead I did not take notes, and I should have. Yes, it doubles my stack, because I keep clearing everything else away—once it’s been on the table for more than a month, I just kind of give up. So my stack becomes... my shelves become the stack.
Kay Hardtmann: OK.
Andrew Womack: Probably a bet.
Kay Hardtmann: But more than four books to read.
Andrew Womack: I am looking forward to these, though. So, thank you all for all the recommendations. Rosecrans, did you have anything else you wanted to say to round us out?
Rosecrans Baldwin: Nothing for me. I mean, if anyone else is in this camp—I think some people have alluded to it—I do not regularly read short stories. I’d say I’m resistant to the form; there are very few short story writers who do the thing for me. This summer has been a really good exercise in getting out of what I told myself is what I like, and making myself try new things. I’ve actually been reading short stories outside of this list, to sort of be like, hey, why were you telling yourself this isn’t what you enjoy? And there was someone—forgive me for not remembering the name—but it was either last time or the first time, who mentioned that if you’re at the beach or the pool, read a story, then go swimming, sit down again, pour a glass of water, and read another story. So I was at the beach this weekend—lucky enough to do that—and that’s how I did a second pass through My Dear You, and that turns out to be a really good way to read short stories. If you’ve got a big body of water nearby, you just alternate between the two. So, thank you to whoever recommended that as an exercise.
Andrew Womack: All right, awesome. Well, if that’s it, then we will see, I hope, all of you in two weeks for our discussion of Python’s Kiss. And until then—happy reading!
Rosecrans Baldwin: Thank you, everybody.
Judy Morris: Thank you.
Rosecrans Baldwin: Hello!
Peggy M: Bye-bye, folks.
Andrew Womack: Thank you.