About This Story
A missing child. A mental breakdown. A woman searches the watery labyrinths of Providence for clues to a tragic mystery that may never unravel.
That’s what you’d put on the dust jacket. It’s meant to be a tragic short story, that has mysteries but maintains realism.
I’m a long distance runner, so I spend a lot of time pounding the pavement around Providence. Ear buds in, audiobook on, Pokemon Go active—but eyes and ears radar-sweeping for details.
You see where this one homeless guy who hates pennies leaves them in glittering piles by his post on the bridge. You see “END THE FED” spray-painted on the Washington Bridge next to a picture of a phallus twenty feet long. You pass What Cheer? doing their thing just as hard as ever they can. Statues, arches, gables, rusty gates, bricks and stones and deep water. The distant echo of chains.
Yes, you see drug deals. No, drug dealers, you are not being as sneaky as you think you are.
But you also see the cops flashing their headlights goodnight to sick kids. That affectionate bedtime blink from a tight chevron of sleek, aggressive police cruisers. Parked in the median, signaling love across the water to Hasbro Children’s Hospital.
It often feels like running through a beautiful, tragic short story collection. A wistful, melancholy tale around every corner. As though you could open any door and peer into a Yoel Hoffman paragraph. Everything is too small or far, far too big. Too symbolic to understand and too real to touch.
Providence is heartbroken and beautiful, and it’s all these things that went into the mix. Plus inspiration from The Heart is a Lonely Hunter and What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, which are personal favorites.