This week, I read Lauren Groff’s suburban nightmare/dreamscape story “Ghosts and Empties”. A young mother who has become “a woman who screams” walks every night in her eclectic old Florida neighborhood, exiting her house and tying up her sneakers, leaving her husband and sons as they make their way toward sleep. For her, the night reveals many fascinations- the tragic black swan family, the overweight young man reinventing himself on his treadmill, the sad attrition at the neighborhood nunnery. The night also harbors a devastating secret, personal, unacknowledged, that can’t be screamed away or walked off. Groff’s dramatic phrasing, powerful language, and vivid, surprising imagery will take your breath away. Take a listen.

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