31 Days of Stories 2025, Day 9: “Burial Ground” by Carleigh Baker
The idea of progress, and what it displaces, takes on a surreal aspect in "Burial Ground."
A Blog About Books and Reading
A Blog About Books and Reading
The idea of progress, and what it displaces, takes on a surreal aspect in "Burial Ground."
In the world of Dick's story, efficiency and rationality are paramount.
"Hairs on Me" is a complicated reckoning with female desire and the kind of bodily insecurity a media-saturated world imposes on women.
Like his contemporary, the Irish monk and writer Laurence Sterne, Diderot proved well ahead of his time.
Gasco has endowed her story with something that is terribly unfashionable in book club circles and social media feeds: an unlikable narrator.
The shifting ground of motivation and relationship between the two characters is brought out metaphorically in the mummers' costumes.
The speaker in the story is Azurée Ghiz, the descendent of Arab immigrants in Toronto.
The story is on one level a comedy of manners; on another, it is a careful and cutting critique of capitalism.
The bare bones of Gardam's story appear minor and parochial; this belies the depth and complexity the author infuses into her tale.
"There's definitely under-representation of BIPOC individuals in senior roles," MacDonald says.