story: “Popular Girls” & “Their Mothers”

author: Karen Shepard

year: 2017

where: Casa dolce casa

note: I am grouping these two stories together, because they are both written in the 1st person plural (a rarity) and they both come from Shepard’s collection Kiss Me Someone, though I don’t think these “mothers” are the mothers of the “Popular Girls”; I also think “Popular Girls” is a much stronger and more interesting narrative. The POV also works better in “Popular Girls”; this story gives me that “Gossip Girl” thrill, but when I was younger, that kind of thrill was blended with a slight-envy, now after I have been around great wealth for so long, a lot of those feelings have changed.

P.S. Shepard is going to be my teacher at Tin House this year.

a line: “She says with a sweep of her arm that when we grow up, she’ll dress us all. Her father lives in a castle. Her grandmother was the queen of Holland or something like that.”

theme(s): Wealth, prestige, friendship, loyalty, men and women, hive mind