family
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Goddesses
I closed my laptop. I thought of words such as “contexts” and “perspectives.” The next morning, I checked out an armload of books from the university library. I had to learn to defend Durga.
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The Rumpus Interview with Asali Solomon
Asali Solomon discusses her debut novel, Disgruntled, narrative structure, the mythology of memory and place, and returning to Philadelphia after years away.
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Woman of the Earth
I left my family’s home in the US afterward because I didn’t know how to stay in the same place where everything had changed.
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Breaking and Burning
They pin him down and I stick him. I am relentless. This disease is relentless. And I am so pissed off.
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The Saturday Rumpus Essay: The Kill Shot
1964, a month prior to the anniversary of JFK’s assassination, a different home movie shot. Infant toss. Up-down. Plummeting. I’m ten months of age—picking up speed.
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D & K’s Fried Fish
In the yard of the single-wide trailer that will haunt you for the rest of your life, watch as your father pulls fish from the cooler, one by one.
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The Saturday Rumpus Interview: Darryl Pinckney
If your family or your people are looking over your shoulder, change your seat or push them away. Ask them to trust you with the truth.
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Keeping Secrets from the Stupid
I was four years old when my mother taught me to lie. There were certain instances, she explained, when lying was acceptable, when it wasn’t even lying, really.
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The Rumpus Interview with Mark Leyner
Mark Leyner discusses his new novel, Gone with the Mind, about a failed novelist, Mark Leyner, who gives a reading to his mom in an almost-deserted food court.
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Eating in Purgatory
I always say the last time was the last time, and I always mean it, but I’m scared I’ll relapse again.
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Neither Here Nor There
Brooklyn Magazine’s Gina Florio poignantly discusses the pain of experiencing microaggressions from her own extended family, and “mastering [her] biracial identity:” I know we’ll eventually find ourselves in another similar situation, in which they’ll hurt me without trying to, marginalize…
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Born This Way and the Children Who Never Fully Leave Home
Nobody talked to me about what happened when my sister grew up until I was headed off to college.