One great short story to read today: Lydia Davis’s “Break it Down”
According to the powers that be (er, apparently according to Dan Wickett of the Emerging Writers Network), May is Short Story Month. To celebrate, for the second year in a row, the Literary Hub staff will be recommending a single short story, free* to read online, every (work) day of the month. Why not read along with us? Today, we recommend:
“Break it Down” by Lydia Davis
I often have a particular experience reading a Lydia Davis story. It’s hard to explain, but it’s as though she’s put her finger in a body of water, say a lake, and stirred, and then the ripples have taken over the lake, changed the texture of its entire surface. She’s done it with such a small gesture, which is her special magic. In this story, she stirs up something very specific: the kind of accounting you only do at the end of a love affair, as you’re wondering whether it was worth it. But, you know, funny.
The story begins:
He’s sitting there staring at a piece of paper in front of him. He’s trying to break it down. He says,
I’m breaking it all down. The ticket was $600 and then after that there was more for the hotel and food and so on, for just ten days. Say $80 a day, no, more like $100 a day. And we made love, say, once a day on the average. That’s $100 a shot. And each time it lasted maybe two or three hours so that would be anywhere from $33 to $50 an hour, which is expensive.
*If you hit a paywall, we recommend trying with a different/private/incognito browser (but listen, you didn’t hear it from us).
