New Yorker Fiction Review #211: "When We Were Happy We Had Other Names" by Yiyun Li

Review of a short story from the Oct. 1, 2018 issue of The New Yorker...

It took me two full read-throughs to fully understand this rudderless, un-anchored whirlpool of names and memories and flimsy characterizations. And I still can't say much about it other than: if I weren't on a mission to read and review all of these stories, I'd have completely forgotten I ever read this one.

There are as many reasons to not connect with an author or a story as reasons to connect with a particular author or story. Maybe it's the time of day when we read the story, or the subject matter, or something going on within us, or we compare it to the last thing we read, or the story mentions the color "blue" and we just had an accident with a blue car. Whatever. No offense to Yiyun Lee but I just did not connect with this one. Short stories like this one make my New Yorker reviewing project a real slog. And I don't like slogs.