Death and Other Holidays

by Marci Vogel

Genres: Family Life; Black Humor; Jewish Fiction

Synopsis

Winner of the inaugural MIAMI BOOK FAIR/DE GROOT PRIZE for Best Novella

The fiction debut of a distinctive new American voice

Life is coming fast at  twenty-something April. All the heavy stuff of adulthood—including the death of a loved one—seems to have happened to her all at once, leaving her reeling, and challenging her wit and grit in ways she never imagined. In a stirring portrait told in keenly etched scenes, Death and Other Holidays follows April over the course of a year, with a candid insight that’s tender, playful, and sparkles with originality.

Release date: November 13, 2018

Publisher: Melville House

Print pages: 144

Sample

Snap, Death and Other Holidays
Snap

I FOUND THIS OLD CAMERA when we were clearing out Wilson’s dresser drawers, and I’m going to start taking pictures. Libby says I’m going to drive her crazy with all the snap, snap, snapping every two seconds, but I read about this woman in the newspaper. She said she’s afraid of losing her mind, her memory, of being erased, so every day she takes a photograph of something, and that way she won’t lose her life when the time comes. I thought it was a good idea.

Green, Death and Other Holidays
Green

THEY SAY WINTER is the season of death, but anyone I’ve ever known who’s died, they died in the spring. They say you’re supposed to get this miraculous sense of renewal and promise, but it never happens that way, either. Libby says it’s because we live in Los Angeles, and our seasonal clocks are set by new lipstick colors, but I don’t think that’s it. Maybe the changes aren’t as obvious as in colder climates, but spring is spring, and it always feels kind of precarious. I mean, there’s so much upheaval, all those blossoms forcing their way out of winter branches, tiny sprouts trying to break through the dirt. The whole business just seems a colossal effort, and if you don’t have a pretty good reason for it, well, I guess I can understand why the entire scheme might not be worth another round.

Consider, for example, my father. He couldn’t stand it, not one more spring. He hanged himself the year I turned sixteen. He left me his Datsun B210 hatchback, and it was months before I learned to operate the clutch without stalling. And my mother’s mother, she held on all winter after a stroke. Halfway through March, she had enough. She made sure my mother knew how to cook a decent holiday brisket, then died in her sleep.

And now Wilson, my mother’s second husband, Wilson, he died last week. I thought maybe he’d live forever, and maybe he would’ve if we had insisted on staying past visiting hours. He was so polite, he’d never die with us there. My mother called early Sunday, though, told me to meet her by the nurses’ station. She took down all the get-well cards, tossed the dried-up flowers, his green striped pajamas, the slippers I got him last Father’s Day. It was all done.

“Hey there, beauty, baby girl,” he’d said. “Wilson’s life is over now, yours is just beginning.” He was pumped full of morphine and he wrote me this note: Start, go.

It was spring, and I knew he was right. I just didn’t feel up to it was all.

Heartbreak, Death and Other Holidays
Heartbreak

IT WAS THE FIRST new dress that Wilson wouldn’t see, black with tiny white polka dots. “My husband died yesterday,” my mother told the saleswoman as she rang up our purchase.

The first time my mother and Wilson saw each other was in that elegant Hollywood apartment, the one he shared with Leo Fine. They tell me I was busy crawling up the stairs one New Year’s Eve when my mother shouted to Wilson, who was walking down, “Don’t step on my baby!”

I was seven when they got married.

I never asked what happened in between.

Every spring, my mother and I would go shopping, we’d come home and take turns modeling new clothes, hats, shoes. My mother liked the skirts that twirled, she’d spin around, and Wilson would clap his hands and say, “Outta my mind over it! Best skirt in the world!” He’d have the Lakers on TV with the volume turned off, and if they missed a shot while we were changing in the next room, I’d know because I could hear his voice.

“Heartbreak,” he’d say to no one in particular.