grace paley

Grace Paley (1922-2007)

"People talk of alienation and so forth… I don't feel that. I feel angry at certain things, but I don't feel alienated from it. I feel disgusted with it, or mad, but I don't feel I'm not in it." (Grace Paley).

Grace Paley died a month ago. I’ve been going through her short stories. There’s one that I especially like: ‘Samuel’, about a boy who stupidly dies while loitering around on the subways. After Samuel’s death, his parents have another child. And these are the chilling lines in which the short story ends, taking the mother’s point of view:

“But immediately she saw that this baby wasn’t Samuel. She and her husband together have had other children, but never again will a boy exactly like Samuel be known”.