Stepparents, tattoos, and a very exciting excerpt

Jan 27, 2020

Welcome back to Memoir Monday—a weekly newsletter and quarterly reading series, brought to you by Narratively, The Rumpus, Catapult, Longreads, Tin House, Granta, and Guernica. 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. It may be the start of a new work week, but at least we have this great new writing to get us through it.

My Journey from "Spare Parent" to Stepparent

by Mo Perry (art by Sirin Thada)

When I began falling for Q, his children seemed like a welcome and natural limit to how far we could take a relationship that neither of us were looking for. I was thirty and recently single, looking forward to having a Sex in the City-like phase of flings after breaking up with my boyfriend of six years. Q—thirteen years my senior—was still married, navigating a divorce that involved kids, a house, and the usual amount of grief and recrimination. We agreed—repeatedly, out loud—that this couldn’t really go anywhere, even as we began spending more and more time together.

Voices on Addiction: The Opposite of Hallelujah

by Hannah Hindley

My brother keeps his shoes on a stacked wooden shelving system, one pair per compartment. Everything in his home is labeled in careful, imperfect handwriting. He eats with his fist closed tightly around his fork. He broke up with a girlfriend once when she tossed a recyclable into a garbage can. If someone sets clean clothing of his on the floor, he gets irritable. His routine is tidy, predictable. His possessions are sparse and cared for. And when I find the burned barrel of a ball-point pen in his room, smell the acrid mix of scorched plastic and chemical powder, I wonder if he can see it, if it hurts—the untidiness of his own life unraveling amid his carefully ordered world.

The Third Rainbow Girl (excerpt)

by Emma Copley Eisenberg

I felt ruined by my time in Pocahontas County – no other place would ever be so good. I felt harmed and also that I had harmed others with my weakness and my silence and my actions, and I didn’t know how to make those two feelings stay together. Every time I grasped one of them, the other seemed to fade away.

How Stripping in Gay Bars Brought Me Back to God

by Court Stroud

In my car driving home, I realized Ron had been right: My issue wasn’t with the divine, it was with one particularly rigid denomination of Christianity. I began looking for a new faith, one founded not on hatred and fear but on charity and love.

Inking Against Invisibility

by Talia Hibbert

When people see my tattoos, they ask me, “Did it hurt?”

My mind says, “That depends. Do you know what hurt is?” because my mind has a bad attitude and a flare for the dramatic.

My mouth mumbles, “Not really,” because my mouth is shy.

Honestly, I’m never sure what people mean when they say “hurt.” Most of the world is visited by pain; I’m handcuffed to it. I’ll describe it to you on the day you tell me what it’s like to breathe.

With Jazz on the Turntable and a Drink in His Hand

by Francis Wilkinson

Guitars, amps, cords, cases, and microphones, along with various instruments—in storage, on loan, or in transit—all found a place on the first floor. They appeared, disappeared, and reappeared at the sole discretion of Philip’s older brother, Billy.

Writers’ Resources

If you’re going to be at the upcoming AWP conference—and/or if you live in San Antonio, TX—come to the very special AWP edition of the Memoir Monday reading series! (On a Friday, not a Monday…)

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Until next Monday,

Lilly