#matt kessler

This February, I had the sort of reading experience that fans of contemporary fiction treasure. I had just started a new story by an unfamiliar writer in Harper’s and, after the first paragraph, I stopped reading, stood and walked to my bookshelf. I knew this voice. I opened the Fall 2014 issue of The Paris Review and flipped to a story entitled “Long Distance.” Sure enough, both were written by the same author, Alejandro Zambra. I sat back down at the kitchen table and finished the Harper’s story, an absolute stunner entitled “Family Life.” The two short stories were perhaps the best I’d read this year.

Reading Girl In A Band in my mid-thirties, I understand why I gravitated toward Sonic Youth and, in particular, Kim Gordon. Few people have so deftly inhabited so many contradictory worlds. Gordon is a writer, an artist, a musician; an anti-establishment fashion icon; a punk singer with roles on Gilmore Girls and Gossip Girl; a symbol of both California breeziness and New York edge. Throughout her career, Gordon has bravely allowed herself to pursue all her interests and has refused to be limited by the petty in-fighting of small subsets. Yes, she’s noise. Yes, she’s at a Marc Jacobs show. Get over it.