Marburg’s lonely, desperate characters struggle to find human connection

Louise Marburg’s new short story collection presents snapshots of twelve women at difficult and painful turning points. Written during the pandemic lock-down, “You Have Reached Your Destination,” due out Nov. 10, exudes the anxiety, fear, and sometimes despair that many were feeling at that time.

The youngest of these women is just 12 years old and struggling to understand and accept her father’s suicide while tiptoeing around her alcoholic and abusive mother. Her one ally, her sister, who is 10 years older, inexplicably turns on her, adhering instead to an alcoholic and abusive boyfriend. Not even a teenager yet, Katie realizes she is utterly alone, with only herself to trust and depend on.

At 91, June is the oldest of Marburg’s protagonists. June lives alone in New York City, “an easy place to be old.” She can take a taxi wherever she wants to go and have her groceries delivered, and she has a best friend in her building. However, June’s friend dies suddenly while having tea with her.

When newlyweds move in next door, she is happy to find the young wife is friendly and even offers to pick up items for June on her shopping trip. It is not long before June hears loud noises coming from her new neighbors’ apartment: loud voices, thumps, and crashes. The next day she sees the young wife with a bruise on her face. June, having escaped an abusive first husband, tries to help her neighbor, but the woman becomes angry. June confides in her daughter, who never knew about her mother’s first marriage. The daughter doesn’t believe her and implies that June is becoming senile. June misses her best friend and feels abandoned by her daughter.

The other ten stories feature young women desperate for family, middle aged women desperate for love, and older women desperate to be seen. Many are orphaned or come from abusive homes. One is so ashamed of her parents, she tells everyone they are dead.

Marburg’s stories of loneliness are not without humor and hope. Matronly, 60-something Lydia finds an obscene and threatening note on her desk. Her patronizing boss promises to find out who left it although he never intends to do anything about it at all. Then Lydia’s duplicitous and self-involved best friend accuses Lydia of leaving it herself for attention. To console herself, Lydia takes an all-afternoon lunch at a downtown bar, not realizing it is a gay bar, even after meeting a woman named Dade who actually turns out to be David.

In “Next of Kin,” a 41-year-old freelancer who has been “actively wooing” a rare-book dealer “despite his obvious lack of interest” finally makes her move on him only to discover that he’s gay. Neither of them can understand how she missed this. Although they don’t make love, they do become close friends, and he promises to be her next-of-kin.

Marburg’s protagonists are searching for human connection, something that was painfully missing for many people during 2020. They are looking for friends, allies, lovers, or children. They are realistically drawn characters struggling with their very human needs in a cold and chaotic world. This fourth collection of shorts stories cements Marburg’s place as an important and compelling voice in contemporary literature as she captures American angst and loneliness as few have done since Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.