SOUNDTRACK:
[READ: December 5, 2022] “The Hole”
This year, S. ordered me The Short Story Advent Calendar. This is my fifth time reading the Calendar. I didn’t know about the first one until it was long out of print (sigh), but each year since has been very enjoyable. Here’s what they say this year
Like we always do at this time: the Short Story Advent Calendar is back for 2022. We had such a great time last year working with our first-ever guest editor, the one and only Alberto Manguel. This year, however, we’re bringing things back to basics. No overarching theme or format, just 25 top-class short stories, selected in-house, by some of the best writers in North America and beyond. It’s December 5. To officially kick off the 2022 Short Story Advent Calendar, here is a story about faith and carbs from the author of The Prince of Mournful Thoughts.
I really enjoyed this story of familial conflict. The conflict is between two sisters. One who has done everything correctly and one, Nikki, who, has been digging a hole for herself her whole life.
Nikki has come to live with the narrator. She has also stopped drinking (sober for the first time in thirty years). But the narrator is not perfect either (far from it). She is divorced and her daughter is not talking to her.
The narrator, Sisi, is, to be blunt, really uptight.
They’ve even got the CN Tower decorated with ridiculous multi-coloured lights now, and every night they shine as a beacon for degenerates and deadbeats.
One morning, Nikki was digging a hole in the backyard. Nikki is tiny and the sight was ridiculous. When Sisi asked why she was doing this, Nikki shrugged, “Exercise?”
A week into the digging, Nikki woke Sisi to tell her a creature had fallen into the hole. It was rescued by their neighbor (whom the narrator despises, of course). The young man, who is in a band and plays loud music all the time, leaped into the hole and freed the baby bunny.
The next day, the neighbor, Brad, was sitting on the couch with Nikki. It appeared that they might be a couple now. Every time Brad had a party (which was often) Nikki would invite the guests over to jump in the hole and dig if they want to.
Soon enough Brad and Nikki are talking about performing songs together. Sisi is sure that Nikki will start drinking again. She is so stressed about Nikki that she starts drinking a lot herself.
We learn of some terrible things that people in their family have said to each other. Like Sisi’s daughter asking “So you think you should have had an abortion instead of having me?”
Sisi is puzzled about the hole and is concerned that someone might fall in. Which of course, she eventually does. She doesn’t get hurt, but she remembers a story she’d read about a man who fell in a hole and was never rescued.
I don’t know if the hole has a specific meaning, but the story is a pretty great interpersonal look at family.
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