One of our favorite short stories in the world right now happens to be Barrett Swanson’s “Annie Radcliffe, You Are Loved,” published in our newest issue of American Short Fiction. Narrated from the perspective of three characters who are strangers to each other–a drug-addled PhD student in Applied Semiotics, a God-fearing boy watching his atheist father die of cancer, and a chubby high schooler who, in an attempt to win back an ex who dumped him via Facebook, further embarrasses himself by pulling an epically miscalculated stunt that, if executed correctly, would’ve put Say Anything‘s Lloyd Dobler to shame–the story seduces us with anticipation as we wait for its characters to converge. Swanson wastes no time warming us up to his narrative. Instead, he hurls us into it with gas-pedal prose and 21st-century humor (hashtags and Gchat conversations, anyone?), with exquisitely rendered points of view, with histories, and grief, and embarrassment, making us think about how we measure our lives and ourselves and our love. In part, the story is a meditation on how we act when we feel, to borrow a phrase coined by the story’s youngest narrator, like the “Bleakest of Coffins.” And while the answer is not definitive and the future often inescapable, Swanson’s story does the job of important literature– it makes us ask big questions and then question our responses, and in its bittersweet hilarity and aching grace, it ignites a pilot light of hope, a glowing escape from loneliness.
Below, you’ll find a short note and playlist that Barrett compiled for the story:
I usually need what can only be described as a kind of monastic silence when I write. For a long time, this meant that I had to wear those little bullet-shaped, foam ear plugs, fortifying them with a pair of bulky industrial earmuffs (like those worn by air traffic controllers), which made anyone who tried to talk to me sound like a parent on Charlie Brown. But for the number of concerned looks the earmuffs drew from my fellow patrons at the coffee shop where I often write, I might still be wearing those bad-boys, but I have since swapped them for the more socially appropriate Bose headphones, which usually do the noise-canceling trick.
On those rare occasions when I do play music while writing, it tends to be instrumental–hence the preponderance of the genre here. Please be apprised that the term “playlist,” as it’s used above, might be misleading, since I didn’t necessarily choose songs that are in thematic or emotional consonance with “Annie Radcliffe, You are Loved,” but picked tracks that I have been listening to with a congregant’s level of devotion for the last few months and that can thus serve as a sonic approximation of the stuff that was going on between my ears while writing and revising this story. I have also included a few of the songs that get referenced in the piece. Here’s hoping you enjoy it.