Week Six: PAPERBACK | The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis

Curated this week by Lindsay Metivier

Many of us read books to escape the reality of our day-to-day lives. I sometimes read for solace or boredom, and other times just want to be taken out of my own head and life and placed into someone updates else’s while I wait for my mug of Sleepytime tea, and/or glass of whiskey, and/or shot of NyQuil to kick in at the end of the day.

Recently, feeling a little fractured and uncertain, I picked up The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis again, a book recommended to me by my good friend Ernie several years ago. A master of brevity, Lydia Davis’s short stories range between a few words to several pages. All gems full of dark humor, the mundane, and acute observations. She gets to the core of the meaningless meaning of life and gives the most banal moments a kind of epic weight. I want my photographs to do the same. On the surface her stories are lucid, sometimes piercing, sometimes funny, sometimes not so funny – added together, they develop a kind of ruthless honesty and an insight into the tortured way our minds work.

I encourage all to take these in small doses – one or two before bed – and let your brain work through the magic of Lydia Davis’s stories as you sleep. You’ll wake up more awake for having done so – although at times these stories are so cerebral that you become almost painfully conscious of just how alone in your own mind you actually are. -LM