A famous lover, a saddle rug, and a book fair
Welcome back to Memoir Monday—a weekly newsletter and quarterly reading series, brought to you by Narratively, The Rumpus, Catapult, Granta, Guernica, and Literary Hub. Each essay in this newsletter has been selected by the editors at the above publications as the best of the week, delivered to you all in one place.
My Great-Grandfather’s Saddle Rug Helps Me Remember a Tibet That’s Gone
by Ann Tashi Slater (art by Sirin Thada)
Contemplating the mandala design of the saddle rug draws me into my great-grandfather’s story in a similar way, I like to think, as meditating on a mandala opens the door to its inner geography. It helps me keep hold of him, and of a Tibet that’s vanished.
My Boyfriend, His Lover, and Me
by Edgar Gomez
You see, his lover was also an artist. One who had, by any measure, made it. In his mid-fifties, he was one of those gay celebrities who is somehow good at everything, with a career spanning from Broadway to television and film. His lover was so famous that when Diego told me his name (I’ll call him C), my first thought was, Oh no,I love that guy.
Interpreting America at the Minsk Book Fair
by Doug Mack
I still see an intrinsic value in sharing stories and lives, in connecting across cultures, even when things get awkward. But I also wonder if that’s a naïve perspective, if what travel writers present as 'connection' is often mere delusion, a fleeting encounter unmoored from any genuine human bonding, from which they forcibly extract a narrative, often contorted to their own ends.
The Lye of the Land
by Derek Gow
It has to be in you and if it is its near unthinkable to do anything else. You are a ‘lord’ large or small on your own land. Making free decisions in your mind even though the banks may rule them in reality. With the seasons guiding your activities you don’t need to think much beyond the boundaries of the most recent chlamydia treatment for sheep, the current cast price for decrepit cows or which toxin to strew on your slugs now that methaldahyde has gone. You don’t want to leave or give up. Why would you? Its been your life whole and complete. It’s your essence and your soul.
Writers’ Resources
Check out this interview with Narratively contributor Finlay Games—about bottom surgery, sobriety, and his book deal.
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