![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() I was transfixed by that cover and title-and would come to realize the brilliant and awful paradox of the cover since the novel’s central image is that of an Eastern European girl blown free of her family killed in that blast, the ceaseless violence of her native land, a photograph captured by the photographer, a photograph that brings disruptive and uncomfortable praise and an award: This novel came to me through a tweet by Laurie Penny, and then the cover and title demanded I read: He can’t….If he doesn’t get it down now, it will blur and hum away like a train. But even has his heart is beating him up in his chest, he can’t not do it. He can’t believe he’s already writing this. ![]() The playwright stops typing for a second and stares at his hands on the laptop. 59).Īnd it is here also in this chapter that along with the central image of the girl, the dominant motif of the narrative is exposed: The Small Backs of Children, Lidia YuknavitchĪbout a quarter into Lidia Yuknavitch’s The Small Backs of Children, the reader discovers the novels’ title as the playwright sits in the hospital while his sister, the writer, is mysteriously wasting away: as children, the playwright has the pair perform Shakespeare, her as Romeo and him as Juliet, and once she improvises the line, “ Pity the small backs of children” (p. Any child is stronger than a mother, since the love we have for our children could kill us. ![]()
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