No One Belongs Here More Than You: Stories

"I actually read it because we were both shortlisted for a short story collection prize. We were all going to be on stage together. It was almost an unfair way to read the book, because I knew I was reading it in a functional way. “I’m going to shake Miranda July’s hand and I don’t want to feel bad doing it.” And of course, we had both been shortlisted for the same prize. If it wasn’t good, my chances of winning the prize would be better. It was a bad way to be introduced to a book. But from the first story I read in it, I was completely sucked in. It is both very, very earnest, and very, very quirky—an earnestness that leads you to very quirky places. I can give you a couple of examples from the book. “The Moves” is a story about a woman whose father is about to die. He really wants to give her something before he dies, but he’s an uneducated ex-Marine, and the only thing he can think of is a technique for making a woman come. The story is all about him sharing with her something that, if she’s heterosexual, she probably won’t have any chance to use in her lifetime. But the fact that her father is giving her something makes the content he’s teaching her totally unimportant. When you tell a story, it’s all about sharing an experience. We can talk about high culture or ideology, but in the end, you’re basically a guest in somebody else’s mind. Fiction exists to train the muscle of empathy, which is the weakest muscle in the human body. “This is how I see things, but here’s a character who sees them differently.” It’s called “The Swim Team.” In it, the narrator has moved to the Midwest, very far from any water. She tells people that she used to swim, and they want her to teach them, so she gives swimming lessons on her carpet. If you follow its emotional thread, it is really a metaphor for trying to share any experience with another person. Because in the end, they’re always swimming on your carpet. You’re the one who was in the ocean. They’ll never have the same experience, but there is something in this swimming on the carpet that pulls out a yearning to understand. Those people swimming on the carpet are the readers I wish for myself."