Loved it! Tonally it felt a bit like a more modern/contemporary George Saunders story (in the best way). More hopeful, too, which felt subsersive in its own way. Thank you for sharing this!
This was a fantastic story. The characters were people I already knew in my life, and the situation believable because I’ve seen similar things happen. For some reason it reminded me of F Scott Fitzgerald.
This is the Substack novella, “Money Matters,” that everyone is talking about from The New Yorker piece. Hot diggety dog, it’s good. Naomi, sure, I’ll say it: “You’re the next Ray-Ray!” Why not?
I really enjoyed this short story. It was perfect for a rainy afternoon where I could get really absorbed in the story, start to finish, and then get on with my day!
Wow, this was really resonant read. I see an uncomfortable amount of my past self in Jack, I too didn't really grow up until my 30s. The story structure was delightful as well, I have always loved the floating narrator construct that third person writing gets to play with.
This was a really fun story! I liked the interiority of all the characters, even the really minor ones. I liked that Jack was just sort of inert at the beginning of this tale — I know a lot of people like that. And that revelation where he realizes that all his girlfriends outgrow him! I would hate to have him as my real life landlord, but it's interesting to spend a little time with a guy like that in a story.
The narrative style and structure are both really fun. Reading this gave me the same vicarious pleasure as going through r/AmITheAsshole stories, where you're sort of invited to judge the protagonist but also you're rooting for him to be okay anyway. Thank you for writing and sharing!
This was fun. At first I was going Jack would choose Cynthia, maybe because I'm kind of a Cynthia, responsible, has her shit together, that kind of thing. And then I thought Mona would steal all the $ from the safe and this would be a tragedy or something.
So the end, where Jack realizes that Mona is really a lot like Cynthia and is going to eventually outgrow him, and just decides this is the point where he's going to try and does it. And somewhere Cynthia is probably wondering, why then, why not me? But Jack really has no idea.
I hope you keep writing things like this. I do like getting a whole entire story in a condensed package.
I found Jack and Mona to be scary people, desperate characters who think they have more figured out than others, not less--and are unaware that their relentless manipulation is the ineluctable, straightforward consequence of early wounding of the human animal (so boring, sorry, but true) and is not a special "talent." Reading this piece made me feel a little more grim about life and and other people. Thanks, I guess? It was interesting that despite the newer convention of centering characters who are cut off from both sadness and joy and swim around in a sea of self-interest, the story ends with what amounts to an engagement/commitment of sorts. I guess the author did mention an interest in Jane Austen. Trying to write something genuinely new isn't easy. The old forms laugh at us.
Did we read the same story? Somewhere around the end, Mona (dressed only to make the statement, "Yes, regular employment is OK with us") puts her hand on the piano and says to Leo, "We're keeping it." And Jack doesn't contradict her. You water this down to "an engagement/commitment of sorts." Um, I guess what Kanakia did there is one of those "old form" things called "symbolism". Also, "don't tell, show". I didn't see either of those old forms laughing.
WAS Kanakia trying to write something genuinely new? Here, let me hit some random keys: ;lkje-9823m:;098z. OK, I'm pretty sure I just wrote something genuinely new. And it wasn't even hard!
This piece really captures something which I think is rarely articulated, because those who know typically just can’t be bothered to explain. There’s basically only two key components to being talented at anything, unlearnable because speed is of the essence, such that if you have to think you’ve already lost: the ability to instantly get to the core of any situation, and the immediate awareness of new options as they appear. If you see the paths and know how to traverse them, and can take them before anyone else, then anything that is possible is attainable. That’s sort of how I feel about systems, and that’s how it is for Jack with people. And this novella captures the pride that can come with this golden gift, this expectation that you should be talented at everything else as well, which means you just cannot bring yourself to muddle along with anything you are bad at, no matter how important it is. It’s the Catcher in the Rye feeling which I thought only angry young male novelists were capable of writing, where you feel simultaneously like a loser and a god, entitled with both privilege and discontent.
There’s probably a lot of overlap here with the phenomena of people who just do not want to work. I’m not referring to those that have daddy’s money and/or poor impulse control, but the cases where this trait is combined with high conscientiousness and a long-term outlook: people who somehow have the ability to make it work without working, and along the way develop a fixation that anything else is failure, a surrender to something like capitalism, or society, or entropy (depending on their politics). These people are usually very interesting! It’s one of the few cases where I wish I had more money, which might open my options for arrangements like this. Unfortunately I can only support myself, without the leverage of Jack’s gifts in persuasion to reach for more, or I suppose even to make it work if I could.
Also, I want to point out that this novella is hilariously also a pretty good argument for the housing theory of everything being the cause of the lack of millennial/Z marriage and the fertility crisis.
They are initially framed as unwilling to work. But in fact, both Jack and Mona do work. It's just unsavory, soul-destroying work, until their self-reconstruction begins. Jack trades in illegal drugs. It's never clear to me whether Mona is a call girl or just a romance grifter, but I'm not sure it matters. Such livelihoods take time and effort. And make money. Does it take a lot of time? Probably not. But the risks in both lines are high, and income is often a matter of risk/reward ratios.
"It’s the Catcher in the Rye feeling which I thought only angry young male novelists were capable of writing"
Catcher wasn't written by an angry young man named Holden Caulfield. It was written by JD Salinger. No, really. You could look it up. If you think Salinger was just an "angry young man" narrativist, give Nine Stories a try. Everything else he wrote, for that matter.
Salinger was 30 when Catcher came out. Having been an angry boy doesn't automatically make you an angry young man. Writing "what I WAS like" doesn't automatically make you "what I AM like."
would you conclude that Salinger's main theme is men who've gone clinically insane?
Then, if you read the second one, would you think his theme is the spiritual emptiness of the suburbs, as seen through alcoholic suburban housewives? If you didn't know Salinger wrote it, and I told you it was written by one of the First Wave feminist authors, I think there's a good chance you'd believe me.
AG, I am hoping that your generation (assuming you are young) doesn't see this lack of a desire to work and just live as a goal in life. If the answer is yes, then the number of mental health issues young people claim at this time will multiply as they grow older. Work's great advantage in life, apart from making your life materially better, is that it slows down your constant thinking about yourself.
This is in reply to your statement, " I wish I had more money, which might open my options for arrangements like this. Unfortunately I can only support myself, without the leverage of Jack’s gifts in persuasion to reach for more"
This is so good!!! I don't have anything insightful to say about it. But it really came together, and the ending surprised me! 10/10, saved to read again.
I read the first 3 chapters and couldn't go on. The pathetic nature of the people involved held no inner depth, they were just lost dross that the wind normally and correctly just blows away.
So many self focused and greedy people in it, it is almost like a dystopian pointer to the end of Western civilisation.
Kanakia, you're changing me. My style in essays has been infected. Really! I'm even using too many exclamation points now!
For my fiction, with your criticisms of contemporary literary fiction having my back, you've been nothing but affirming. My themes, style, and plots are starkly different from yours. That you approach fiction as story-telling first is what impresses me. I go into more, about both changes, here:
If I don't name you in in that essay (though there is a link to "Money Matters"), it's really just shyness. Because I'm not sure I'm getting it right.
Briefly, your theme is counter-intuitive: fear of being lovable. Story: overcoming that (with money-thinking an obstacle, of course.) Is that it?
This didn't come to me in a dream, exactly. But it did come to me in interpreting a dream, after a nap I took just after reading the story. In that dream, I was a gentler person--out of character for me, but comfortably in it, in the dream. And in that, and in connecting it to "Money Matters," I felt a subtle change in myself.
I may not have as much fear of being lovable that these characters started with. But I was forced to admit that there are still traces of it in me. May this happen to more people! And I think "Money Matters" would be a good place for many people to start. (And belatedly, !!!. Sprinkle above as desired.)
I loved this story and this is the first tale of yours that I have read. Knowing that there are more like this is just the icing on the cake. I'd love to attempt something in a similar structure at some point in the future. Thank you for sharing this.
This is brilliant. I sat down and read it in one sitting and was so glad that I did. It all fits so well. I love that your writing shies away from images and detailed description which I feel, as a writer, bogs down the work -- let the reader imagine. I also appreciated your several 'interjections' or explanations. A fascinating and effective idea in this media.
I have restacked this in hopes that others will read it and follow your work. I say yay to be uncompromising, yay to your succeeding in getting so many readers for this work.
Loved it! Tonally it felt a bit like a more modern/contemporary George Saunders story (in the best way). More hopeful, too, which felt subsersive in its own way. Thank you for sharing this!
Thank you!
This was a fantastic story. The characters were people I already knew in my life, and the situation believable because I’ve seen similar things happen. For some reason it reminded me of F Scott Fitzgerald.
One of my favorite writers. I think because he wrote so much about money and respect, and the ways those two things become intertwined
This is the Substack novella, “Money Matters,” that everyone is talking about from The New Yorker piece. Hot diggety dog, it’s good. Naomi, sure, I’ll say it: “You’re the next Ray-Ray!” Why not?
Thanks!
I really enjoyed this short story. It was perfect for a rainy afternoon where I could get really absorbed in the story, start to finish, and then get on with my day!
Thank you! I'm glad you liked it
Wow, this was really resonant read. I see an uncomfortable amount of my past self in Jack, I too didn't really grow up until my 30s. The story structure was delightful as well, I have always loved the floating narrator construct that third person writing gets to play with.
Thank you. So nice to see people reading this.
This was a really fun story! I liked the interiority of all the characters, even the really minor ones. I liked that Jack was just sort of inert at the beginning of this tale — I know a lot of people like that. And that revelation where he realizes that all his girlfriends outgrow him! I would hate to have him as my real life landlord, but it's interesting to spend a little time with a guy like that in a story.
The narrative style and structure are both really fun. Reading this gave me the same vicarious pleasure as going through r/AmITheAsshole stories, where you're sort of invited to judge the protagonist but also you're rooting for him to be okay anyway. Thank you for writing and sharing!
This was fun. At first I was going Jack would choose Cynthia, maybe because I'm kind of a Cynthia, responsible, has her shit together, that kind of thing. And then I thought Mona would steal all the $ from the safe and this would be a tragedy or something.
So the end, where Jack realizes that Mona is really a lot like Cynthia and is going to eventually outgrow him, and just decides this is the point where he's going to try and does it. And somewhere Cynthia is probably wondering, why then, why not me? But Jack really has no idea.
I hope you keep writing things like this. I do like getting a whole entire story in a condensed package.
I found Jack and Mona to be scary people, desperate characters who think they have more figured out than others, not less--and are unaware that their relentless manipulation is the ineluctable, straightforward consequence of early wounding of the human animal (so boring, sorry, but true) and is not a special "talent." Reading this piece made me feel a little more grim about life and and other people. Thanks, I guess? It was interesting that despite the newer convention of centering characters who are cut off from both sadness and joy and swim around in a sea of self-interest, the story ends with what amounts to an engagement/commitment of sorts. I guess the author did mention an interest in Jane Austen. Trying to write something genuinely new isn't easy. The old forms laugh at us.
Did we read the same story? Somewhere around the end, Mona (dressed only to make the statement, "Yes, regular employment is OK with us") puts her hand on the piano and says to Leo, "We're keeping it." And Jack doesn't contradict her. You water this down to "an engagement/commitment of sorts." Um, I guess what Kanakia did there is one of those "old form" things called "symbolism". Also, "don't tell, show". I didn't see either of those old forms laughing.
WAS Kanakia trying to write something genuinely new? Here, let me hit some random keys: ;lkje-9823m:;098z. OK, I'm pretty sure I just wrote something genuinely new. And it wasn't even hard!
This piece really captures something which I think is rarely articulated, because those who know typically just can’t be bothered to explain. There’s basically only two key components to being talented at anything, unlearnable because speed is of the essence, such that if you have to think you’ve already lost: the ability to instantly get to the core of any situation, and the immediate awareness of new options as they appear. If you see the paths and know how to traverse them, and can take them before anyone else, then anything that is possible is attainable. That’s sort of how I feel about systems, and that’s how it is for Jack with people. And this novella captures the pride that can come with this golden gift, this expectation that you should be talented at everything else as well, which means you just cannot bring yourself to muddle along with anything you are bad at, no matter how important it is. It’s the Catcher in the Rye feeling which I thought only angry young male novelists were capable of writing, where you feel simultaneously like a loser and a god, entitled with both privilege and discontent.
There’s probably a lot of overlap here with the phenomena of people who just do not want to work. I’m not referring to those that have daddy’s money and/or poor impulse control, but the cases where this trait is combined with high conscientiousness and a long-term outlook: people who somehow have the ability to make it work without working, and along the way develop a fixation that anything else is failure, a surrender to something like capitalism, or society, or entropy (depending on their politics). These people are usually very interesting! It’s one of the few cases where I wish I had more money, which might open my options for arrangements like this. Unfortunately I can only support myself, without the leverage of Jack’s gifts in persuasion to reach for more, or I suppose even to make it work if I could.
Also, I want to point out that this novella is hilariously also a pretty good argument for the housing theory of everything being the cause of the lack of millennial/Z marriage and the fertility crisis.
They are initially framed as unwilling to work. But in fact, both Jack and Mona do work. It's just unsavory, soul-destroying work, until their self-reconstruction begins. Jack trades in illegal drugs. It's never clear to me whether Mona is a call girl or just a romance grifter, but I'm not sure it matters. Such livelihoods take time and effort. And make money. Does it take a lot of time? Probably not. But the risks in both lines are high, and income is often a matter of risk/reward ratios.
"It’s the Catcher in the Rye feeling which I thought only angry young male novelists were capable of writing"
Catcher wasn't written by an angry young man named Holden Caulfield. It was written by JD Salinger. No, really. You could look it up. If you think Salinger was just an "angry young man" narrativist, give Nine Stories a try. Everything else he wrote, for that matter.
"My boyhood was very much the same as that of the boy in the book, and it was a great relief telling people about it."
Salinger was 30 when Catcher came out. Having been an angry boy doesn't automatically make you an angry young man. Writing "what I WAS like" doesn't automatically make you "what I AM like."
If all you read was the first story here
https://books.google.co.jp/books?id=n5unDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT8&source=kp_read_button&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false
would you conclude that Salinger's main theme is men who've gone clinically insane?
Then, if you read the second one, would you think his theme is the spiritual emptiness of the suburbs, as seen through alcoholic suburban housewives? If you didn't know Salinger wrote it, and I told you it was written by one of the First Wave feminist authors, I think there's a good chance you'd believe me.
AG, I am hoping that your generation (assuming you are young) doesn't see this lack of a desire to work and just live as a goal in life. If the answer is yes, then the number of mental health issues young people claim at this time will multiply as they grow older. Work's great advantage in life, apart from making your life materially better, is that it slows down your constant thinking about yourself.
This is in reply to your statement, " I wish I had more money, which might open my options for arrangements like this. Unfortunately I can only support myself, without the leverage of Jack’s gifts in persuasion to reach for more"
This is so good!!! I don't have anything insightful to say about it. But it really came together, and the ending surprised me! 10/10, saved to read again.
I read the first 3 chapters and couldn't go on. The pathetic nature of the people involved held no inner depth, they were just lost dross that the wind normally and correctly just blows away.
So many self focused and greedy people in it, it is almost like a dystopian pointer to the end of Western civilisation.
This is fun. I have to go to my job because I’m ordinary, but I’ll be back to finish it later.
Kanakia, you're changing me. My style in essays has been infected. Really! I'm even using too many exclamation points now!
For my fiction, with your criticisms of contemporary literary fiction having my back, you've been nothing but affirming. My themes, style, and plots are starkly different from yours. That you approach fiction as story-telling first is what impresses me. I go into more, about both changes, here:
https://ismailhatago.substack.com/p/why-i-dont-write-literary-fiction
If I don't name you in in that essay (though there is a link to "Money Matters"), it's really just shyness. Because I'm not sure I'm getting it right.
Briefly, your theme is counter-intuitive: fear of being lovable. Story: overcoming that (with money-thinking an obstacle, of course.) Is that it?
This didn't come to me in a dream, exactly. But it did come to me in interpreting a dream, after a nap I took just after reading the story. In that dream, I was a gentler person--out of character for me, but comfortably in it, in the dream. And in that, and in connecting it to "Money Matters," I felt a subtle change in myself.
I may not have as much fear of being lovable that these characters started with. But I was forced to admit that there are still traces of it in me. May this happen to more people! And I think "Money Matters" would be a good place for many people to start. (And belatedly, !!!. Sprinkle above as desired.)
I loved this story and this is the first tale of yours that I have read. Knowing that there are more like this is just the icing on the cake. I'd love to attempt something in a similar structure at some point in the future. Thank you for sharing this.
You should!
Many men go through a transition like this, punctuated by having children, so it can speak to us, at least in hindsight.
Like Jack, I don't think we see it the same as we are going through it.
This is brilliant. I sat down and read it in one sitting and was so glad that I did. It all fits so well. I love that your writing shies away from images and detailed description which I feel, as a writer, bogs down the work -- let the reader imagine. I also appreciated your several 'interjections' or explanations. A fascinating and effective idea in this media.
I have restacked this in hopes that others will read it and follow your work. I say yay to be uncompromising, yay to your succeeding in getting so many readers for this work.
I have subscribed, too.
be well,
gg