Python’s Kiss
Welcome to the fourth 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 Python’s Kiss by Louise Erdrich.
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JULY 28, 2026
Python’s Kiss
Andrew Womack: OK, so we’re here. Welcome to the fourth edition of Summer Shorts—the ToB summer. Camp ToB, maybe. Maybe we’re gonna just call it that, and that’s cool too. We may need to take a vote at the end of the summer. The AI Companion is on. OK, let’s hope it doesn’t say anything. Let’s hope. I hope. Something’s gotta create a transcript, I guess, so hopefully that’ll be copacetic. So, yeah, welcome to week four. We’re talking about Python’s Kiss, by Louise Erdrich. This is by far, so far, my favorite book of the summer. It’s stunning. I’ve already read it twice—most of it twice. Absolutely loved it. I’ve got some favorites in here, a few of which I’d like to talk about a little bit. There’s also a lot more of us here this week than there were last time, so I’m not gonna talk a lot at the start, so that we can get to everybody talking. As usual, if you want to say something about the book, please raise your hand. We can also have the chat—you can leave stuff there if you want. Everybody, if you want to know how to raise your hand, you use the react button at the bottom of your screen, and when you go down there, there’s a raise hand option. Also, if you just kind of want to jump in, you can do that too. I understand that maybe these things might need to turn into more of a free-for-all—I don’t know, let’s let it become what it is. So, yes, welcome to our discussion of Python’s Kiss.
My own personal experience going through this book was that every single story became my favorite one as I was going through it. Each one was like, that’s the one, that’s the winner, I think we have all our answers here. The first one—absolutely stunning. I mean, it was pretty emotionally crushing in a lot of ways, and I think that’s what it was basically trying to convey—this coming-of-age realization of the pain and the violence of life. But let me see if I can find the—well, I guess I have the list here of what I can go through. So, “Python’s Kiss”: loved it, loved the way it started. “Wedding Dresses” then quickly became my favorite. I loved how much was packed in there—the interweaving kinds of stories of what happened, and then what I didn’t tell her had happened. There are just these beautiful asides of—I don’t know, it’s just so true to life—of what we tell, how we tell a story, and maybe what we don’t tell, what we hold back. I thought that was just beautifully phrased. “The Hollow Children” was where I got a little—where it lost me a little bit. Maybe it was just too painful, or too paranormal? I’m not sure. But I was having a little bit of trouble following that one, so I kind of didn’t fully give myself over to that story as much. And then “Love of My Days”—I was at kind of a low point in the book here, and I thought, I really don’t want a Western. I’m not into that. And then, as it went on—and the way it ends, the way it just opened up into this whole other story, where you find out who that character really is, and then you find out so much more about the horses—it was so beautiful, the way that opened up, in a way I just totally didn’t expect. And then I think the surreal nature of that kind of continued through “Domain” and “Asphodel”. I kind of hoped for a little bit more from those two—looking at them as companion pieces, with this idea of the afterlife being owned by, was it seven, I think, corporations? Which I love. And I kept—I guess my high-water mark for that, personally, was, what is it—San, it’s the Black Mirror episode, the one with heaven as a place on Earth at the end of it. Spoiler alert, but it came out like 12 years ago. But that was a beautiful story, both the Black Mirror one and—“Domain” and “Asphodel” didn’t quite work for me—and then where my mind was absolutely blown was with “Borsalino”. So I’m just gonna leave it at that one, because “Borsalino” was my favorite. Absolutely. I loved how we learned about Enzo, who seems like just a normal guy, but he’s not. And then we learn more about what’s happening with the husband, and how that kind of reveals itself. And after that one, I just had to set it down and say, well, she’s just—Louise Erdrich is just such a master of the form. It just blew me away. She is incredible. I have already recommended this book to three different people. I hope they all read it, and they can’t have my copy, because I’ve still got to go through it again. But what a wonderful book. I don’t want to take up all the time—we’re like eight minutes in, there’s a lot of us here, and I bet a lot of people have things they want to say about the book. So if anyone wants to jump in, please do. I see Kate, you were saying “The Hollow Children” was one of your favorites. Do you want to be the first one to talk?
Let’s see if we can help—the unmute should be—I wonder if I can unmute you.
Kate M: There.
Andrew Womack: Perfect.
Kate M: I liked “The Hollow Children”, and I think I liked it because it did not have a sad ending.
Andrew Womack: Right.
Kate M: I like the way that little pieces wove through, so that at the end you realize this was all really a true story, because you had the prologue, and the fact that this was written in a notebook—so that sort of grounded it for me. So the surreal aspect was the experience of the bus driver in this truly horrible situation, and what could have gone so wrong, didn’t. For me, that was a delightful twist. Although I have to say, my favorite story, I think, was “The Feral Troubadour”.
Andrew Womack: That one was crazy. I loved—I did not expect that one to go down the way it did, you know? Nope.
Kate M: It took so many weird twists, and for me, that was the sheer joy of it. So I would have to say that was my favorite story out of the book. Generally, I preferred the ones that had happier endings to the ones that had sadder endings—that’s a personal preference, so that swung my favorites ranking within the book pretty significantly.
Andrew Womack: I’m just gonna take that, and I think “Borsalino” had a happy ending for—well, for some people. I mean, not for the husband.
Kate M: You know, I think there was something about—and the family went on, but it didn’t seem to have a brilliant family—it was a happier ending than it could have been. But for most of her stories, and I thought this was actually a strength, it wasn’t the traditional “and they lived happily ever after” or “they triumphed and defeated the Dark Lord.” It was a more realistic portrayal of—life goes on with its ups and downs, and the prince and the princess are not going to wind up together. That was not a bad thing, but it’s a different thing—a more nuanced, more realistic view of life.
Andrew Womack: Oh, I like this. After Brawler, the bar for a happy ending got a lot lower, I guess. We need it, folks. We need the happy ending. Thank you. Did you have anything else you wanted to add, Kate, or should I—alright. Kay, tell us what’s going on. Kay Nelson.
Kay Nelson: Just in case—I struggled with this book. There was too much uncertainty and ambiguity and weirdness to it for me. So I kind of would like to go back—I honestly wasn’t sure of the ending of “The Hollow Children”. Did they die at the bottom of the lake, or did they make it to the school?
Judy Morris: They made it to the school.
Kay Nelson: But how do you know that for sure? I didn’t know it for sure—I mean, I went back and looked at it. Somebody has to help me.
Kate M: I think, for me, there were two elements that made it certain. One of them was: you were told toward the beginning of the story that the bus driver was writing this in a notebook, which was picked up years later. I took that as a concrete fact—if he’s writing it in a notebook that’s picked up years later, they survived.
Kay Nelson: You’re right, I remember that now.
Kate M: And then there was also the thing my sister actually pointed out—there’s the question about, well, he didn’t pick up one child on the school route because the storm was too bad, and at the very beginning of the story there’s something about a grandmother who dove into a haystack and survived.
Kay Nelson: That’s right.
Kate M: That was kind of interesting, and I had not picked up on it at all. So I definitely thought there was enough there to say that yes, they really did survive.
Kay Nelson: I agree. I forgot—I did go back and go through that, but I still—when you read it at face value, I felt like there was uncertainty on them, and I felt that on quite a few of them, that I wasn’t sure of the ending. So, yes, this book didn’t quite do it for me compared to the other short story collections we’ve read so far. But I definitely liked “Borsalino”, for the very—I did think it was a good ending, because the husband was an abuser, we can get rid of him. And then I did like “The Feral Troubadour” too. I kind of like the “Amelia” one, where she works at the KFC. So here’s another one where—my comment on this, on the ending, is that his—Mr.—I can’t read my own handwriting—for wrath, he helps —
Andrew Womack: In the KFC one?
Kay Nelson: His twin sister, Amelia, buys the KFC. But are they the same person? I thought they were maybe—yeah, OK, everybody’s standing there. So yes, I felt like these stories made me really think a lot to try to figure out what was happening at the end. So when I’m talking, I’m sure you don’t understand why I say this book didn’t do it for me, because as I’m talking I’m like, OK, I had to think about it—I guess I really did catch some of it. But yeah, too weird for me overall.
Andrew Womack: I’m gonna sell you on this book, Kay. But the ending—I like that you mentioned something I wanted to bring up, when you talk about how they end. It was something that struck me, and I mean, I loved it—it felt a little abrupt in the title story, in the first one, but it was that ending: “for I have seen him there many times in this long life.”
And I love that it just throws you forward into the present. I just love that last line there—you think you’re just gonna find out more about what’s going on with, well, I guess we got out of the fight and all that stuff, and then that’s when we find out about Nero’s demise, of course. But it’s that—I loved it, because it did feel like the curtain just dropped, you know? But you mentioned the way they end, and that was just an ending I thought was particularly cool. “I have seen him there many times in this long life.” It’s very cool.
Kay Nelson: Thanks to everybody for letting me share and for helping me understand some of the endings.
Andrew Womack: Everyone here helped me understand the news from Dublin, so I appreciate that too. I’m here to learn. Cool. Alright, Bryn, you are next in the queue.
Bryn Lerud: Yeah, this was my favorite too, of the—how many have we read, four? Yes, this was my favorite. I read it twice, also, because the first time I read it was the first of my holds to come through at the library, so I read it, like, two months ago. So I got it again and read it again just this last few days. And one of the things that I like about it, the whole collection, is how fragmented the stories are, and how you really have to work to figure out how one event in the story relates to another. Like—my two favorite stories are “Python’s Kiss” and “Love of My Days”. So, in the title story, there’s the story of the dog, and there’s the story of Jurgen, the narrator’s uncle, marrying Priscilla, and there’s the story of the boa constrictor and the python at school. So it was like she took these—I’m not saying weird, well, I don’t know—she took these three separate things and put them together into a story that made sense as a whole, and that’s what I really liked about this book. And it was the same with “Love of My Days”—we don’t figure out who Timble is until the end, although when he goes to the farmhouse with the woman with the weird name—I can’t think of it —
Andrew Womack: [in chat: Priscilla]
Bryn Lerud: But she—you know, they know each other because he was in love with her sister. So we learned that later. But what I didn’t understand about “Love of My Days”—and everyone, you can help me too—at what point did—Timble—go to this house and say this is his? I mean, I understand he used to live in this house, but it also says in the book that he lived there while the family with the three girls lived there, and he lived on the farm. And then they had to sell the farm and moved into town, and then he started rambling and going all over the place, and then he learned that the sister he was in love with died. And then he was off rambling around the country again, doing odd jobs. So at what point did he decide to come home and take over this house and go crazy? That’s my question.
Andrew Womack: Does anybody have an answer there? If you do, jump in. I can’t recall. Maybe it’s a mystery for the ages.
Bryn Lerud: I might have to read it again.
Andrew Womack: We all have our homework. I, you know, you were talking about the different parts of the title story—there were a couple things I think we need to talk about, snakes, probably, just in general. And another thing is, what was the name of the dog? What was the name of —
Bryn Lerud: Nero.
Andrew Womack: Priscilla’s dog.
Bryn Lerud: Oh.
Andrew Womack: Because it had an amazing name.
Bryn Lerud: I don’t know, I can’t —
Andrew Womack: Like Benedict Cumberpatch or something—it had a great name.
Tristan Bullington: Wasn’t it just Mitts?
Bryn Lerud: Oh, I got it—Lord Keith.
Andrew Womack: It was Lord Keith.
Bryn Lerud: She bred her dog, Mitts, to Lord Keith, who was a papered stud living on another farm.
Andrew Womack: Lord Keith was the one I was trying to remember. That is a great name for a dog. Any human name—like Sean, you can’t name a dog Sean. But nor can you name a dog Keith, I don’t think, but maybe somebody here—if your pets have human names, I am sorry. There’s no judgment. Cool. Do you have anything else, Bryn, or do you wanna pass the conch shell to Lauren? Alright, Lauren, you are next.
Lauren Oertel: Hey. I’ve been waiting for this since I read it about a month ago. The audio came up, so I read it on audio, and most of the stories worked in that format, but I have the print copy—especially for one of those illustrations, they’re beautiful. I did need to reread a couple in print that didn’t work on audio. For example, “Assassin” completely, somehow, went over my head on audio, but rereading it—and I can say more on that one later—I think my favorites are a tie between “Python’s Kiss”, for just the devastation of it—it just hit so hard, the lines toward the end. Like you mentioned, Andrew, that closing line is fantastic, and then the point where she says, “I didn’t want to be human anymore, and he didn’t recognize me, I had become one of the betrayers.” There was just so much in that story. But then another one, already mentioned, “Amelia” was probably my favorite for the lightheartedness of it—the reveal of the revenge was so fun. And just for the coleslaw—the line about “I decided to let the whole thing go, otherwise my life would be like Bjornson’s way of mixing the old coleslaw in with the new coleslaw” was such a striking and memorable image, and disgusting when you think about it. So yeah, I just loved that, and I appreciated the opening—the really heavy emotional aspect of “Python’s Kiss”. It was great to have the lighter ones, especially toward the end—pretty light and fun and joyful. I also enjoyed “The Feral Troubadour” for that kind of silliness, the poetry, and the cat. Yeah, this was great to have in both formats, and a beautiful book, definitely. If anybody hasn’t already been to the family bookstore in Minneapolis, and you’re ever in Minneapolis, definitely go to Birchbark Books—you get to meet at least one of her daughters, because they work there, and that’s great.
Andrew Womack: Didn’t you say one of the daughters read the book too?
Lauren Oertel: Somebody put that in the chat, and that sounds—but now that it’s been a month, I’ve already forgotten. Yeah, it’s a whole family business, with all the books they write and the way they run the bookstore and do the art and everything.
Andrew Womack: I love how everybody here reads so much that we can’t remember what we read a month ago. It’s like one after the other. I did want to—you were mentioning the stories later in the book, and I cut myself off at “Borsalino”, but I also want to give a special shout-out to “The Stone”. I thought “The Stone” was really, really cool—such a cool story, very surreal. So cool. So, Lauren, did you say you wanted to say something else about “Assassin”, or did you want to hold on to that?
Lauren Oertel: I could say that for later, since that’s kind of a different type of comment. But yeah, what you were just saying about “The Stone”—what a beautiful line to end, to close the whole collection with: “Flesh would become stone, and stone become flesh, and someday they would meet in the mouth of a bird.” That’s very poetic.
Andrew Womack: Cool. Alright, Tristan, welcome back—we missed you last time. Hello!
Tristan Bullington: Sorry I missed last time—I couldn’t get the book from my library in time, and I buy too many books as is, so I had to have an intervention with myself. I’m doing this one because I was hoping to be persuaded that I needed to continue reading it, because I read the first one and was like—meh, didn’t do a whole lot for me. So then I read the last one, which was “The Stone”, and liked it even less, and I just think I may not be the right person for this book—based on what everyone has said so far, it just did not connect with me. I started reading the “Wedding Dresses” one and just got bored, and said, you know what, I’m gonna show up not having read the book and see what people say, and see if they persuade me to keep reading it. But it seems like maybe I should just DNF this and read something else.
Andrew Womack: Oh, man.
Tristan Bullington: Not every book’s for everyone, it’s OK. Glad you guys liked it—just not for me.
Andrew Womack: Out of curiosity, what’s your favorite one so far—Groff, Khong, not Khong, well —
Tristan Bullington: I like Brawler a lot.
Andrew Womack: Yeah, OK.
Tristan Bullington: Yeah, Brawler, for sure, is my favorite one so far. And the Khong one might be good—I just couldn’t get it from the library, so if I get it at some point I’ll give it a shot and report back then.
Andrew Womack: Cool, we do want to hear about it. Have you read any of the upcoming ones?
Tristan Bullington: Not yet. If I read these too far in advance, I won’t remember any of them, and will be absolutely worthless. More worthless, and —
Andrew Womack: Same, same, relatable. Cool. Alright, Judy, tell us—Judy Morris, in case there’s more than one. Judy Morris, hello!
Judy Morris: Hey, OK, I’m agreeing with Tristan. I feel like Louise Erdrich and I have been together a long time. I started reading her way back, and have read everything, and she writes two kinds of books, as far as I’m concerned—incredible, and not so good. And this is in the not-so-good part. I did not think—she was just too far out, it was sloppy. The part you said, where I feel like I don’t belong, when you said “flesh becomes stone, and then it ends up in the mouth of a bird”—to me that is about as poetic as I don’t know what. It just doesn’t do anything for me. So I was very disappointed in the book. She’ll come back and write something wonderful for the next one, but this one is my least favorite.
Tristan Bullington: I love you. What is your favorite? Thank you for validating my feelings.
Judy Morris: Yeah, no, and my favorite, if I could have a favorite, was “December 26”. That one was talking about a subject I feel she’s really comfortable with, and knows, and that one I could buy. That was Louise writing—and I liked that one, but that was it.
Andrew Womack: I thought that one felt very cinematic—you could see it, it was gripping. “December 26”, I thought—I was on the edge of my seat wondering what was gonna happen with that one. It was like Breaking Bad or something. Drugs, all that.
Judy Morris: Well, I’m sewing up little puppies.
Andrew Womack: Exactly.
Judy Morris: Drugs, drugs soon.
Andrew Womack: What is your favorite Erdrich? You were saying, like, she’d go be amazing, or —
Judy Morris: There’s two—there’s The Master Butchers Singing Club—I can’t remember the title—and then the one about—a miracle on no horse. Where is it? It’s the priest—I don’t remember that one. The Night Watchman. The Master Butchers Singing Club—thank you so much. And then—something happened at Miracle’s No Horse, or something like that—I can’t remember the name of that one.
Andrew Womack: Was The Night Watchman the one that had—they were in Congress at the end?
Judy Morris: Yes, to go to D.C.
Andrew Womack: OK, yeah. I like that, that was cool.
Judy Morris: I think her earlier ones, that I can’t remember, where she writes about adopting children—she adopts a little girl—does anybody remember going back that far? Turtle... turtle dove, turtle something. The Last Report on the Miracle at Little No Horse—that’s probably my favorite.
Andrew Womack: OK, I’m gonna have to check that one out. The only one I’ve read previous to this was The Night Watchman, and it has stuck with me, absolutely—some of the imagery in that comes up all the time in my head. So I was really excited to read this one, and now I know I need to read that one next, because I’m fanning out for Louise Erdrich right now. So you’ve hit me at a point of a lot of fanning. Alright, did you have anything else, Judy?
Judy Morris: Nope, that’s it.
Andrew Womack: Alright, Ellen, you are next in the queue.
Ellen Harrison: I found the stories variable. There were ones that I—the Western one, which was the Western one? What was that called, “Assassin”?
Andrew Womack: “Love of My Days”.
Ellen Harrison: “Love of My Days”. I just didn’t get it at all—it just went right over my head, or right past my head. I loved “Amelia”. And in general the stories really reminded me—it’s certainly my favorite of the short story collections we’ve read so far this year, but I’m not a big short story collection reader in general—but what they reminded me of, because they all had that kind of weird angle to them, was Shirley Jackson. They seemed to have a kind of a Shirley Jackson edge to them—not all of them, but I had that sense of the ghost of Shirley Jackson being there. And also, I’ve gone back and forth with Louise Erdrich all my life, for as long as she’s written. The Round House and LaRose were the ones that really blew me away, and I had not read her before them. I had read all the early books, and then the whole Michael Dorris thing squicked me, and I just stopped reading her, and then came back with The Round House and LaRose, which I thought were spectacular. This one, like I said, I thought they were variable. And I think that, for Kay, I would say that uncertainty is part of what she’s selling—I think that’s very deliberate. I think all of the stories have this little “really, is it or isn’t it” sense to them, and I think that’s very deliberate. That’s the feeling she wants to get across, and I think she did it fairly successfully. So—that’s it, that’s all I got.
Andrew Womack: It’s cool, I’ve got a lot more recommendations. I have not read The Round House. I was just reading—I wanted to know about the Michael Dorris thing you referred to, so I was just looking that up really quickly, and I think I get what you mean. Milou North?
Ellen Harrison: It was weird—I guess it’s now 30 years ago, isn’t it? A long time ago. I had seen them together on talk shows, where they were all very lovey-dovey, talking about how, when they published a book, they didn’t know whose book it was—they just slapped a random name on it, hers or his—and the whole thing, and then as the story developed, it just skeeved me, and I just didn’t read her for a long time.
Andrew Womack: OK, yeah, Milou North was their shared pen name, like you said—the person whose name is on the books is the one who’s done most of the primary writing. Yeah. Alright, Kay, you are next.
Kay Hardtmanned myself. I didn’t mean to go three names—Kay Hardtmann.
Kay Hardtmann: Yeah, it’s just—yeah, sorry. My—I think her strength here is how she writes—she’s just telling a story about her family, and it has that feel of, you know, sitting around on a Sunday afternoon, talking about things—she’s just telling the story about this dog in her backyard, or the wedding dresses she had, or something. I think that is a strength, but I do think it makes for a very unique storytelling style. The other thing I will say is that I know you didn’t like the “Asphodel” stories, but I really liked the first one—I found it really imaginative and interesting. And then the one that followed it, or I guess “Domain” was the one that we’re —
Andrew Womack: “Domain”, yeah.
Kay Hardtmann:—the idea of “Asphodel” —
Andrew Womack: That was the one with the father, right?
Kay Hardtmann: OK, you like the idea, but maybe we didn’t need a second story. But I did like “The Feral Troubadour” most, I guess, like most people. There’s just one part in it that I actually made a note on: “Perhaps this pit of shame without perspective is the true human connection. Perhaps a sharing of soul dregs is what makes it possible to write a poem.” And just that whole paragraph is so lovely. When she just goes loose like that, she’s very, very good. This wasn’t my favorite of the collections we’ve done, but I still enjoyed reading it quite a bit.
Andrew Womack: What’s number one for you?
Kay Hardtmann:My Dear You, the Rachel Khong.
Andrew Womack: Oh, that one sounds good. Yeah, I was pretty convinced last time.
Kay Hardtmann: Yeah. Rachel Khong’s writing is exceptional.
Andrew Womack: I had a lot of the thoughts from that discussion that everyone here was having last time—some of that really stuck in my head, about the injection or whatever, and just some of it—it’s just big, big ideas, it’s so cool.
Kay Hardtmann: And just incidentally, Melmoth has decided to join us again—she’s turned out to be quite the book lover.
Andrew Womack: We welcome all cats. G’day.
Kay Hardtmann: Yeah.
Andrew Womack: That is a lot of hearts, that’s amazing. Alright, Melmoth—I thought you said Mon Mothma, I was like, Star Wars?
Kay Hardtmann: Melmoth. No.
Andrew Womack: Got it. OK, next up we have Peggy M. Welcome back, Peggy.
Peggy M: Thank you!
Andrew Womack: Boom.
Peggy M: OK, so I read three of the stories—“The Hollow Children”, “The Feral Troubadour”, and “Amelia”—and I really liked them all. She is just tremendous, I think—the narrative voice was so different in each of the three stories I read, so fluent and distinctive and well-suited to the material at hand. She has this incredible way of conveying people on the page. So I look at the main character in “The Feral Troubadour”, and I’ve never met anyone quite like that in a book before, but he came across so clearly and vividly—kind of unforgettable. And I look at “Amelia”—we have the narrator, Marty the cook, Mr. Ponath, the narrator’s parents—they’re all so vivid. She just communicates people so incredibly well. I do agree with Kay that I think there was a piece missing in “The Hollow Children”—we had the storyline of what actually happened, and then we had his vision, or premonition, or fantasy of the deaths of the children, and it was like there was some piece missing that would have brought that full circle for me. But I just think Louise Erdrich is tremendous, and we are so lucky to have her.
Andrew Womack: Here, here. Yeah—hearing everybody talk about “The Feral Troubadour”, that was one I did not read twice. I read most of it twice, and I kind of should have gone back to “The Feral Troubadour”. And I loved “Amelia”—I’m glad people seem to be gravitating toward that one too. The thing with the coleslaw that Lauren was talking about—I mean, it hits so much harder in the age of cyclospora, doesn’t it? It’s just gross. But, cool. Thank you, Peggy. London, welcome—would you like to let us know what you thought?
London Summerville: Thank you. This is the first one of these I’ve attended, but Louise is my favorite writer, so I had to come. I know we’ve talked a lot about “Love of My Days”—that was my favorite—but I just wanted to say one thing about it we haven’t talked about: what I loved was the unusual structure. It’s almost like this roving eye, moving from character to character. I think in a more traditional story, Weir would be the main character—he’s the one who gets his prized horses stolen at the beginning by Timble—but she moves on from him, and there really is no protagonist. If there’s a protagonist in the end, it’s Timble, but he comes up intermittently, and I just thought that was really unique and captivating—and I too don’t like Westerns, usually, other than Lonesome Dove—but I really loved that story. The other thing I wanted to mention was this passage in “Python’s Kiss” that I think gets at what I love about her books, and I think it encapsulates a lot of these stories too. This is when the girl is touched by the tongue of the python, and she says: “The touch of its tongue had been dry and lighter than the stroke of a sable paintbrush. Yet the touch left me with a vast feeling I have yet to name. It was more than a sensation. It was as though I had been chosen, marked for wisdom, or maybe sorrow. Or perhaps, I think now, a sense of the ridiculous in these extremes of experience.” And so I think what I love about her books is that there’s wisdom, there’s a lot of sorrow, but there’s a lot of humor, and I think that quote about the absurdities of extremes of experience really touches a lot of these stories. I also think it’s the reason why she’s an acquired taste, because her books and her subjects are a little bit offbeat and non-traditional.
Andrew Womack: I’m glad you mentioned that passage—I actually tried a new note-taking method, I don’t know if it worked. I’m looking at this giant photo of that passage that you just read, which I was keeping in my notes app—I’ve been taking photos of the book throughout, and that was one that struck me too, because I was trying to understand better the idea of the python’s kiss. It’s mentioned there, but it’s also mentioned in “December 26”—did anyone see that? It was mentioned there as well, on the first page—I’m looking at my notes here—where it says it’s good luck, right? So I’m wondering—I did not get around to doing this, but did anybody do any research on pythons, and whether there was anything about luck, or—should we all plan a field trip to the petting zoo? I think they have one, like a surrendered python, here in Austin at our zoo. But, you know, should we all go find out more about “Python’s Kiss”? I have no idea, anyone? Yeah, there’s a few more links—I know there was the snakeskin in the hat in “Borsalino”. There were other snakes that kept showing up, and I was wondering if anyone else had noticed that. Cool. Alright, well—maybe just me. But I love that passage, and I couldn’t grasp onto anything, but the interconnected nature did seem to be—we sure do have a lot of snakes showing up, and I think there were a couple other places as well where there were snakes. Anyway, did you have anything else, London?
Alright, Amanda, over to you.
Amanda Prokop: There we go, sorry. Sorry I missed the last time—work was crazy, got a promotion, got a whole bunch of new work, and everything was due that day or the day after, so I missed it.
Andrew Womack: Congratulations.
Amanda Prokop: Thanks. Waiting for the pay to come in, but yeah, happy. One of the things—some of the stories we haven’t talked about, in “Domain”—I just love the idea of, for spite, that woman figured out which corporation to go to just to kill her dad, and beat him to death, in a place where you can’t die, to figure all that stuff out. Just the driving spite—I found that story interesting. Now, I was also wondering, as I was reading this, how the stories came together. We were talking about the snakes—I was wondering, with the illustrations, how much of this—was the art based on the stories, or were the stories based on the art? I would love to listen to an interview with Louise and her daughter about how they came to do both of these together.
Andrew Womack: I would love to hear that too. I read one interview where she was talking about how happy she was to be working with her daughter. I’m assuming the illustrations were done after the fact, based on the publications, but I also wonder how much did they change—are these verbatim from the New Yorker or wherever? Or how much were they brought together as a single work? I love the illustrations—I saw earlier in the chat we had a note about the illustrations. With “Asphodel”, didn’t show the girl with all the different parts. “Asphodel” was—I keep getting them confused, “Domain” and “Asphodel”. “Domain” was the one where she kills her dad, right? And “Asphodel”—who can remind me on “Asphodel”? I took no photos of “Asphodel”.
Kay Hardtmann: So, “Asphodel” was the one where she changes her appearance, because she was—I guess she was marred when she arrived, so she got to design herself, essentially.
Andrew Womack: Mmm.
Kay Hardtmann: Why she ended up with a penis and two vaginas, and —
Andrew Womack: Exactly.
Kay Nelson: No, I think that was from the other book, “Asphodel”, where she has—she has children, 8,000 different children that she has to make, one after another, and then she has to break up with them and tell them they’re going away, until one version makes her disappear. That’s “Asphodel”.
Andrew Womack: That’s “Asphodel”?
London Summerville: But the daughter who takes over her body is the one who then creates all these versions of herself with the two vaginas and the penis. It’s all the same story.
Kay Nelson: No, there was just one, in a different—where she went to heaven, and she had been—when she was killed, her face was marred, and she got to make her face into what she wanted to make her face into. But then, “Domain”, we keep saying that she goes to kill him—they talk about it as deletion, not as killing. She—the father turned himself into her son so that he wouldn’t be deleted.
Kay Nelson: Kate’s nodding—yeah, she read it the same way I did.
Andrew Womack: That’s how I read it, yeah.
Kay Nelson: OK, alright.
Andrew Womack: I’m just resorting.
Kay Nelson: Yeah, but I felt like the word “deletion” was used specifically instead of killing or death—it was a different kind of concept because of how “Domain” was.
Andrew Womack: I mean, looking at these illustrations, the thought I had too was—what an interesting foray into a graphic novel some of these could make. I imagine anyone looking at the illustrations—I definitely looked at them first, and then again at the end, to see what I could gather from the illustration. And I think they all—I loved the “Asphodel” illustration probably the most, because I liked spotting all the faces and everything in it—unless I got it wrong again—no, that was “Domain” with the cube, but “Asphodel” was the one with the vacuum and everything. It’s very cool, I love the illustration style. This is one talented family—I look forward to seeing what else they might do together, because they could certainly produce some more beautiful work. Did anyone else have their hand raised? Don’t see anything. So, we are kind of coming up on our hour, which makes me want to ask—Lauren, did you want to revisit “Assassin”?
Lauren Oertel: Sure. So that one, reading it the second time in print, was much better as far as the format. It really hit me at the end, but I feel like it was a missed opportunity to go deeper with it—especially toward the beginning, the part about saving the girl who jumped into the lake. That felt so rushed to me—there was so much more we could have experienced there. It’s on page 122, just—the girl jumped into the lake, and then I saved her, and—I don’t know, she really just kind of rushed that part of the story, because where the story ultimately lands is—you know, it could have had a huge emotional impact, but I think she got in and out of the story too quickly, especially in the opening. So I don’t know if folks had other thoughts on “Assassin”, but the idea of it really resonated, and I think it just could have been fleshed out a little bit more.
Andrew Womack: I know, I agree—I think it kind of fell off at the end. I think it started strong, and definitely—isn’t this one of the shortest ones too?
Lauren Oertel: It’s very short.
Andrew Womack: Yeah, it seemed like maybe it was a thought that never really had a second thought—maybe that’s why it didn’t become part of a novel. Possibly. I see in the chat we’re talking about “Big Cat”, which is a really good one, with the snoring, right? This was crazy—some of the—I don’t have a shot of it here, but the sound of all the snoring in the house together—there was some language she used there that just had me cackling. It was so fun, it was like a symphony of snorers—there was all the different parts, and each snore had its own timbre, its own kind of thing going, for each family member. That one was a fun one.
I think I just kept going back to “Borsalino” so much, because—you cannot kill my inner goth—and a good ghost story is hard to say no to, or whatever it was. I actually had a hard time pinning down what kind of supernatural being Enzo was at first—I thought, what’s going on here? Because he’s visible, everybody sees him, he seems to be corporeal in some way—didn’t he pick stuff up? Wasn’t he eating, wasn’t he cooking? There was, like—he seemed to be more than a ghost but less than a zombie, whatever that is. I don’t know, I’m not good at this.
Amanda Prokop: I think it was a ghost—she was in Italy, she was in Venice.
Andrew Womack: OK.
Amanda Prokop: Like, a very haunted place, where that could definitely happen, and the residents there are gonna know the ghosts.
Andrew Womack: Local ghost.
Amanda Prokop: For Enzo.
Andrew Womack: It’s just—exactly. I loved that one, thought it was great. Was there something, though—did anybody get the sense—yeah, Kate, you’re going where I was going—something about Enzo kind of being, like, maybe trying to capture her, or trying to somehow take her captive, or—wasn’t there something about how she needed to still get away from Enzo, that he was kind of, there we go—yeah, something about how she was gonna—that Enzo also presented a threat, but then she used that threat to her advantage later on, I suppose.
Alright, I was gonna say, Melissa—I saw your hand was up a little while ago. Melissa hasn’t disappeared, did you have some—I saw your hand up briefly.
Melissa Jones: Yeah, I was just curious if people read these books cover to back cover—I’m sure this has come up at some point during these conversations, but I am curious, because several of the books we’ve read—the Groff, this one, the Tóibín—I didn’t read the Khong, or the Ozeki—like, all of them have had previous appearances in magazines and such, so none of them are purely original collections. They have some original stories in them, but some of them are old, and I’m wondering if that changes the way people who’ve read short story collections read them. I’ve picked these up and flipped through and read stories in various—I’ve read all of each of the books, but I’ve read them kind of at a whim, however I wanted to, and none of them seemed to have a flow by the time I finished, as opposed to sometimes—like, I’m thinking of Jonathan Escoffery’s collection from a few years back, where the stories have interlocking characters, and there are moments when—and other story collections I’ve read where they build on—even if the stories are unrelated, you can kind of see a through-line, like, oh, all of these are exploring alienation, or loneliness, or whatever—and I’m wondering about the impact people have felt with story collections like this one. Do you feel it’s connected to the book as a whole, or do you feel—like we’ve discussed tonight—that you can only find yourself connecting to individual stories, kind of as if you were reading them in a magazine, where they were on their own? I’m wondering how that makes you feel about collections like this in general. I understand why authors do it, but I am sometimes—I think the Groff is maybe an exception, because the original story she has, there’s a little bit of a through-line there of middle age—women in a transition—that I think helped link some of the stories. OK, so someone’s saying it felt like that, and that’s the one I didn’t read. But I am curious if anybody here wants to speak on how these feel as a whole, as you’re going through it.
Andrew Womack: Jump in, anyone.
Ellen Harrison: Unmute.
Andrew Womack: Have at it.
Ellen Harrison: One of the reasons I don’t tend to read short story collections is for that very reason—when you’re reading a novel, you get into that world and you’re immersed in it for the entire time you’re reading it, whereas with short stories—disparate short stories like these, where they’re not necessarily connected—it’s like I have to start over again every ten pages. I have to start reinventing that world in my head every time the story—but ultimately what it does is let me choose which ones I liked better than the other, which is harder in a book like A History of Sound, which was short stories that were connected—it was almost like a treasure hunt to figure out how they were connected, or why, and that makes it more like a novel. For me, I just, in general, don’t tend to read short story collections, because I have this constant feeling of, oh god, now I have to start over—every time. So I don’t know how other people feel about that.
Amanda Prokop: For me, I take a break in between each story—either, like I said in a previous session, I take the short story collection somewhere, to the beach or the pool, where I want to read for a bit and then go do something else and come back and read some more. And a short story is a great format for that, because it gives you time to take the break, and you’re not like, oh, this chapter’s really good, I need to keep going. Or I’ll read a story, then read something else, then come back—and this summer it’s been a romance novel, so read a story, then go back and read the romance novel for an hour, and come back, read another story. And that way I go into each story fresh.
Andrew Womack: I have now pool-tested the Nunez, on Friday. Perfect—because it’s a little spicy, you know, go and dip in, dip out—worked really well. I did think, for “Python’s Kiss”, though, for me—is this thing working, OK—I did think that, for me, for “Python’s Kiss”, that starting off with the title story set the mood, set the tone—it kind of covered a lot of the things we were about to see, maybe. And maybe that’s just hindsight—maybe I’m just validating that it had an intentional order in that way, but it felt like some of the themes in that one were then touched on in brief touches in the later stories. But again, I might just be validating it in hindsight—I don’t know if the order mattered in that case.
Melissa Jones: There’s obviously nothing wrong with it, and it is great to have a book you can pick up, read something in, put it down, read something else, go back to—just one thing, but not everything. There’s certainly—I was just curious, because so many of us are readers, obviously, and are probably used to just reading straight through, and whether that reading experience changes when you’re really shifting gears pretty frequently—even though, you’re right, I think especially Erdrich has a distinct style, so you always feel like you’re in her style. But yeah, it was just interesting to think about how these collections—kind of trying to think of even themes that the authors were going for—and, like I said, none—I’m sure there are some—but the Groff was the one where I had some themes jump out at me the most, and some of these others I would have to think on a little bit more. So, yeah. Thanks—thanks for answering my question.
Andrew Womack: Thank you for contributing that. Yeah, I think it’s a good question—is a short story collection a Greatest Hits, or is it an album? Maybe it depends. And yeah, I love the idea of jumping around in them—I did jump around in the Tóibín, because I started off with the “Barton Springs” story first, and then I kind of read backwards—well, I didn’t read it backwards, but I read the previous story. But anybody who saw my recollection of that book probably did think I’d read it backwards, because I made about that much sense.
Thank you all—does anybody have any closing thoughts? I know we’re up at the hour, and maybe nobody wants to keep going, and that’s cool. Alright, so if nobody has anything else—in two weeks we will be discussing The Typing Lady, by Ruth Ozeki—is that right? That’s next, right? Yes. And then, at the end of August, we’ll be rounding out the summer with Sigrid Nunez’s It Will Come Back to You, which is a lot of fun—I recommend everyone pick it up and definitely find a nearby pool, because it’s perfect for that. I’ll just vouch for it in that way.
Thank you, everybody—hope to see you all again in a couple of weeks. I’m going to be transcribing this by hand, diligently, every single word of it. We will be posting the video for everyone who wasn’t able to attend. Thank you all for making this summer a success so far—I know I’m personally really enjoying meeting up with all of you and getting to discuss these books. I’m getting a lot more out of the books as a result of having people to talk with about them, so thank you so much. Really appreciate everyone here, and we’ll see you again in two weeks. Alright, take care, everybody. Thank you! Bye.