Tributaries
(2013)(A book in the Electric Literature's Recommended Reading series)
A Story by Ramona Ausubel
Love strikes in unpredictable ways. Sometimes we're looking for it, other times it finds us, and all too often we believe we've found it only to discover we were wrong. Love can be mutual or impossible or unrequited or budding. We chase it, fall into it; it spurns us and consumes us. In whatever form love inhabits, we always recognize that gutsick elation, that sublime devouring, or, as it's described in this story, that "lucky thing that everyone hopes for."
At the heart of Ramona Ausubel's "Tributaries" is an idea: love manifested in flesh. As we all strive, quixotically, to capture love in different ways - in poetry, in paint, in lyric, in gesture - in "Tributaries" love erupts as a new appendage, a "love-arm." Mobile or inert, controlled or spasmodic, full-grown or a collection of half-developed lumps, the love-arms emerge in many forms. But this too proves to be an imperfect way to express feelings, and what makes Ausubel's rendering remarkable is how deeply she explores the attendant politics and psychology.
About Recommended Reading:
Great authors inspire us. But what about the stories that inspire them? Recommended Reading, the latest project from Electric Literature, publishes one story every week, each chosen by a great author or editor. In this age of distraction, we uncover writing that's worth slowing down and spending some time with. And in doing so, we help give great writers, literary magazines, and independent presses the recognition (and readership) they deserve.
About the author:
Ramona Ausubel is the author of the novel No One is Here Except All of Us, which was a New York Times Editor's Choice and a San Francisco Chronicle and Huffington Post Best Book of the Year. Her new book A Guide to Being Born is a collection of short stories, which will be out in May. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review Daily, One Story, The Best American Fantasy and shortlisted in The Best American Short Stories and The Best American Non-Required Reading.
Genre: Fantasy
At the heart of Ramona Ausubel's "Tributaries" is an idea: love manifested in flesh. As we all strive, quixotically, to capture love in different ways - in poetry, in paint, in lyric, in gesture - in "Tributaries" love erupts as a new appendage, a "love-arm." Mobile or inert, controlled or spasmodic, full-grown or a collection of half-developed lumps, the love-arms emerge in many forms. But this too proves to be an imperfect way to express feelings, and what makes Ausubel's rendering remarkable is how deeply she explores the attendant politics and psychology.
About Recommended Reading:
Great authors inspire us. But what about the stories that inspire them? Recommended Reading, the latest project from Electric Literature, publishes one story every week, each chosen by a great author or editor. In this age of distraction, we uncover writing that's worth slowing down and spending some time with. And in doing so, we help give great writers, literary magazines, and independent presses the recognition (and readership) they deserve.
About the author:
Ramona Ausubel is the author of the novel No One is Here Except All of Us, which was a New York Times Editor's Choice and a San Francisco Chronicle and Huffington Post Best Book of the Year. Her new book A Guide to Being Born is a collection of short stories, which will be out in May. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review Daily, One Story, The Best American Fantasy and shortlisted in The Best American Short Stories and The Best American Non-Required Reading.
Genre: Fantasy
Used availability for Ramona Ausubel's Tributaries