Help me find this short story/trigger warnings ahoy
May 31, 2024 9:06 AM Subscribe
I heard a story on Selected Shorts years ago. If you have pretty much any triggers, you'll likely find them in the extended explanation.
Really: strong stomachs only need apply.
Save yourselves. I almost feel guilty about asking the question.
I heard a story on NPR years ago and I have never been able to figure it out, but, well, it made an impression, and its particulars make it hard to understand why I can't find it. Memory also vague at this point.
Spoilers, CW, etc, going to just outline this below. (You can still back away, you know. Just because this thing is stuck in my head doesn't mean it has to be stuck in yours. I told my partner about this story and I feel like I injured him.)
Anyway, this is it, you brave soul:
A young man lives with his mother in the midwest. He is splintering badly into an active meth (?) addiction. He's in his early twenties. She's alone/divorced/husband dead. I think he came home to live with her, or maybe he just never left.
Tensions escalate over time due to poverty/his drug use/old resentments.
One day she is in the kitchen, chopping carrots for soup, on a cutting board. Son comes downstairs, he's barely at home any more, it's the middle of the afternoon. He's a mess. Picking at scabs on his skin, barely eating, the whole drug addicted package.
His penis is out. It is raw and bloody because he's been jerking off in an obsessive meth-head haze.
She's his mom, so she does the logic mom brain thing and soaks a washrag and starts to clean up his penis, not knowing what the fuck else to do.
He stands very still and lets her until he grabs her by the wrist and places her hand on the cutting board. He then he takes the knife she was using for the carrots, raises it, and cuts off her fingers.
The thing I remember coming away with is the notion of things we can't come back from, or the crazy number of things people surprisingly do come back from, or how sometimes love is just...hopeless.
In any case, it made an impression and I want to read it again, because clearly something is wrong with me.
I heard a story on NPR years ago and I have never been able to figure it out, but, well, it made an impression, and its particulars make it hard to understand why I can't find it. Memory also vague at this point.
Spoilers, CW, etc, going to just outline this below. (You can still back away, you know. Just because this thing is stuck in my head doesn't mean it has to be stuck in yours. I told my partner about this story and I feel like I injured him.)
Anyway, this is it, you brave soul:
A young man lives with his mother in the midwest. He is splintering badly into an active meth (?) addiction. He's in his early twenties. She's alone/divorced/husband dead. I think he came home to live with her, or maybe he just never left.
Tensions escalate over time due to poverty/his drug use/old resentments.
One day she is in the kitchen, chopping carrots for soup, on a cutting board. Son comes downstairs, he's barely at home any more, it's the middle of the afternoon. He's a mess. Picking at scabs on his skin, barely eating, the whole drug addicted package.
His penis is out. It is raw and bloody because he's been jerking off in an obsessive meth-head haze.
She's his mom, so she does the logic mom brain thing and soaks a washrag and starts to clean up his penis, not knowing what the fuck else to do.
He stands very still and lets her until he grabs her by the wrist and places her hand on the cutting board. He then he takes the knife she was using for the carrots, raises it, and cuts off her fingers.
The thing I remember coming away with is the notion of things we can't come back from, or the crazy number of things people surprisingly do come back from, or how sometimes love is just...hopeless.
In any case, it made an impression and I want to read it again, because clearly something is wrong with me.
More specifically, the Broadcast History section lists every episode going back to 2000. Unfortunately, it only lists the title, author and reader, not a summary. But maybe you'll recognize it! Assuming you do, please report back, because I would like to hear more about this crazy-ass short story.
posted by mrphancy at 4:02 PM on May 31
posted by mrphancy at 4:02 PM on May 31
Response by poster: Not getting anywhere looking at titles unfortunately. So many are vague enough that they could be the title, and I'm not even sure when I heard it or whether a man or woman read it. I don't know whether a man or woman wrote it. I can't even remember if I was driving or cooking or what city I was in. It could have been over twenty years ago.
I was captivated by it but I think also trying to protect myself from it, because my God. It's haunted me since.
posted by A Terrible Llama at 8:29 AM on June 1
I was captivated by it but I think also trying to protect myself from it, because my God. It's haunted me since.
posted by A Terrible Llama at 8:29 AM on June 1
Best answer: I haven't heard the Selected Shorts broadcast, but the story is "The Good Doctor" by Adam Haslett. PDF available here. It's in his first collection, "You Are Not a Stranger Here" -- highly recommended.
posted by neroli at 8:34 AM on June 1 [4 favorites]
posted by neroli at 8:34 AM on June 1 [4 favorites]
Response by poster: Holy crap that's it and my memory had it almost entirely wrong.
Except for the body horror. Got that right.
Thank you!!!
posted by A Terrible Llama at 9:25 AM on June 1
Except for the body horror. Got that right.
Thank you!!!
posted by A Terrible Llama at 9:25 AM on June 1
Oh, thank God. That was going to drive me crazy. I love Adam H. dearly and have that collection somewhere but clearly need to read it again because I had not even a ghost of a memory of the story.
posted by Don Pepino at 9:12 AM on June 3
posted by Don Pepino at 9:12 AM on June 3
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posted by brujita at 12:17 PM on May 31