This month the theme for our creative nonfiction selections is the eternal conundrum of The Other,
as interpreted by four excellent writers in four various and surprising ways. We begin with Chloe Caldwell’s “Night Bird,” which addresses a series of dramatic questions to a person who must be The Ultimate Other: the former romantic/sexual partner.
No less beguiling is Billie Jo Mason’s “The Changeling,” which investigates the shifting Otherness of the spouse who is not the same person one married.
Perry Glasser, in “Kneel,” goes back even further in our psychological history, examining what it means to really try to understand That Other who is one of our parents.
Finally, Marie Lecrivain, in “Shear Magus,” takes the concept of The Other to a level of surprising profundity by proffering the implicit question, What precisely is the nature of Jorge the hairdresser? I am sure that you will enjoy all four of these masterful character studies of Otherness.