Extra forever ago, I fell in love with the writing of Kelly Link. It was the first book I ever bought in NYC (where I went to film school). I got it in a bookshop complete with snobby shopkeeps and a fat cat. I judged the book by its cover completely. Can you blame me?
I took it home to my cramped Washington Square dorm and curled up on my extra-long twin bed. It was my freshman year of art school, and if art school kids are square pegs in round holes, I was the L wrench that came in the box: inexplicable, perhaps useful, shiny and out of place.
I cracked the book delicately and started to read. I was absorbed into a world of sadness, magic, triumph, and lists. Sets of names of forgotten lovers, sets of ways to spring a trap, sets of twins and sisters---all coded in myth and mystery. The stories contained some of my favorite things: heart, wit, and girl detectives. In the beginning of that awkward year, they became something good to fold into and grow out of.
I think children who were avaricious readers grow into adults who are avaricious readers, and the avariciouser we get the harder it is to fall in love with a book: to be taken in by it, feel connected to it in a visceral and emotional way. I still connect to this book, even though a few of the stories have changed their meaning to me. I'm no longer a fierce and fumbling eighteen-year-old away from home for the first time, getting lost in the scream and flash of a city I had dreamed of since a kid. I'm pleased to find a constant in content like this, something that grows with me or was always there waiting for me to see the change, what more there was beneath the surface.
But enough love lettering! The point of this misty meander down memory lane and cheery clip up...present & future drive is....Kelly Link thinks my music video is cool!
Fall in zombie love with her here.
(you can read the full text of many of her tales online, and download a complete copy of Stranger Things Happen on this site.)
Or cut to the chase and read Flying Lessons, one of my favorites, now.
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