story: “In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson is Buried”

author: Amy Hempel

year: 1985

where: Al Reem Island

note: This is Hempel’s first published story. When the narrator says, “I remember only the useless things I hear”, it reminded me of the mother in “Mercedes Kane”who laments in the first paragraph about what she can and cannot remember.

a line: “We watched a movie starring men we used to think we wanted to sleep with. Hers was a tough cop out to stop mine, a vicious rapist who went after cocktail waitresses.”

theme(s): Friendship, loss, grief, fear, youth