In her story collection The Entire Predicament, author Lucy Corin investigates the unstable line between public and private life
By Amanda Davidson
lit@sfbg.com
Dangling by one ankle in the front doorway of her house, the narrator of “The Entire Predicament,” the titular story in Lucy Corin’s new collection, regards the world from an upside-down vantage point. “My country’s at war,” she states, as if, tilted over, she can simply spill out this oft-suppressed information. As she twirls, slowly, suspended by a “network of ropes,” the unnamed protagonist observes the inside of her house and the outside world in alternating rotations. Inside, consumer totems of the good life — “the desirable open floor plan” and “shining kitchen” — turn out to lack substance. Doors are hollow; walls crumble at a touch. Outside, children, soldiers, and, mysteriously, a small giraffe collect on the lawn. “How did I get here?” the suspended narrator wonders.