Much of what I’ve learned about life comes from plants—the seemingly endless varieties my father planted around our homes in towns along India’s west coast. Each time we moved, my father yanked us from the ground, tap roots and all, and replanted us elsewhere, he in the center, the trunk of a great old banyan […]

1. Exposition Graduate school English literature symposium. Presentation on orientalism, as I am in my Edward Said phase (which came after my Plath obsession but before my Frantz Fanon kick). I work in some stuff about the occupation of Palestine, the suppression of its artistic and political voice. Orientalizing is feminizing the other, as a […]

The late-morning Nigerian sun sets the sky ablaze, forcing me to squint. I can’t tell for sure which two boys scuffle in the dusty courtyard, but I fear I know the smaller one. Regrettably, in the month I have been volunteering at this primary school, I’ve come to recognize the haphazard swinging of his arm […]

My mom crouches on the backseat floorboard. The divorce has driven her, no, us, to new lows of curiosity. “Not so slow,” she whispers. My dad would hardly recognize us in the rental car, let alone hear our conversation. Still, my mom whispers. Instructs me to drive with an air of nonchalance as though this […]

Richard Aldinger had never seen his father fire a gun. In fact, the only real firearm in their house—until just a few years ago when his father purchased the handgun he eventually used to kill himself—was an ancient single-shot 16-gauge shotgun once owned by Richard’s great-grandfather. It was a useless relic with rusted hinges and […]

My mother’s frugality is legendary. Our cabinets were always stocked with generic food–the plain white labels declaring “coffee,” “chocolate syrup,” and “whiskey.” My theory: her obsession with money stemmed from losing her father. When she was ten, my grandfather was rear-ended by another car. He hopped out with an offer to fix the other driver’s […]