DADDYStoriesBy Emma ClineIn an era whose ascendant short-story practitioners lean into high-concept experiments of genre and form, Emma Cline represents something of a throwback. Cline’s idiom is earnestness punctuated by millennial cool — but nothing too fussy, everything in just the right place. Cline preserves the usual hierarchy: the weary young, the flummoxed and resentful old, everyone tumbling around feeling constrained. During a scene that finds John revisiting old home movies, Cline observes, “How easily a veil dropped between him and this group of people who were his family. Cline nails Kayla’s withering deadpan: “Mary, with her loose linen shirts, her silver oxfords, was the kind of older woman that younger girls were always saying they wanted to be like.

Source: New York Times September 01, 2020 09:00 UTC