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
samantha Neugebauer 