This “Feed your Soul” takes me from discovery to discovery. The first discovery here is the New Yorker’s “Fiction podcast series”, a podcast where authors read another author’s story and add their understanding of the story. It seems there are more than a hundred and fifty episodes of this podcast. The second discovery, this short story, is read by Kristen Roupenian, the author of “Cat Person and Other Stories”, horror stories from women’s lives. I am looking forward to reading that book. Finally, the short story itself is by Shirley Jackson, the master of horror stories. The story of a little girl who refuses to perform in front of her grandmother. This one seems relatively harmless on the surface, but it’s easy to see where it could slip, bringing a little sprinkle of horror.
“I did so,” Harriet said. “I wanted everyone to think I wrote it. I said I wrote it on purpose.” She went over and took the papers out of her grandmother’s unresisting hand. “And you can’t look at them anymore, either,” she said, and held them in back of her, away from everyone.