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I have to admit, I’m a sucker for scientists. I started off as a biology major in school, but my mind is not made for memorizing–periodic table of elements, anyone?–so I walked away from my poor grades into the comforting arms of English Literature. Now I get to indulge my taste for zoology by reading fiction about scientists. This kind of literature steps behind the test tubes into the minds of characters trying to understand the unknowable, and this is something that Laura van den Berg’s What the World Will Look Like When All the Water Leaves Us brings to the table with aplomb. I was immediately drawn in by her setting of Madagascar. Oh yes, and the monkeys. The monkeys! A monkey whose screams turn your heart to stone! So cool. But the story wouldn’t have worked it if weren’t for Celia and June. This mother-daughter combo is one for the textbooks: Celia opening up to her own sexuality and physical power just as June’s is starting to fade. There is a lot of tension and anger between them, but the final moment, as Celia watches June walk away into the jungle, is fraught with emotion and longing. This story is the title track to Laura’s upcoming short story collection, which will be released by Dzanc books in 2009. We can’t wait to read the rest. Take a look at Laura’s Q&A with us to find out more about how she wrote this wonderful story.
As one who has been fortunate enough to read the rest, you’re right – you can’t wait! It’s wonderful.
I am a sucker for scientists too, looking forward to reading the story!
[...] Continuing in literature, One-Story magazine has published issue #102. [...]
It was a wonderful story. My favorite part:
“…the five layers of the rainforest: the overstory, the canopy, the understory, the shrub layer, and the forest floor. She said each part had its own little ecosystem, its own little universe. And weren’t people like that too…worlds unto their own…”
Thanks for publishing it, the author Q&A, and also the insight in the latest issue of P&W.
Lovely! Very nicely done!