{"id":127,"date":"2006-02-03T09:34:39","date_gmt":"2006-02-03T13:34:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thewormbook.com\/hlog\/?p=127"},"modified":"2006-02-03T09:34:39","modified_gmt":"2006-02-03T13:34:39","slug":"dirty-realism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.thewormbook.com\/hlog\/?p=127","title":{"rendered":"Dirty realism"},"content":{"rendered":"

A wonderful, grindingly sad story in this week’s New Yorker<\/em> about teenage mothers in Louisiana. It’s not online — though well worth the cost of the print magazine — but there is an interview<\/a> with the author on the web site.<\/p>\n\n

One heart-breaking vignette among many: Luwana is the nurse, Alexis an eighteen-year-old mother.<\/p>\n\n

Alexis lived with her mother and father, a grocery clerk and a construction worker who were in constant conflict. When Alexis was eight months pregnant, the fights grew so fierce that she fled the household altogether. Her recent return testified less to domestic reconciliation than to the impact that a squalling baby has on the sleepover invitations a girl receives.<\/p>\n\n

As Luwana tried to draw Alexis out, the phone rang, and Alexis covered her ears. "I’m guessing this is Daigan’s dad who keeps on calling," Luwana said, after the third round of unanswered rings. Alexis met her eyes for an instant, then burst into tears. "O.K., now," the nurse said, "spell it out for Miss Luwana."
\nBetween sniffles, the proximate cause of distress became clear. Daigan’s father, a sturdy twenty-six-year-old named James, worked on a tugboat on the Mississippi River. That weekend, he would be returning to shore and expected to have sex with Alexis, though she was not healed from childbirth, nor was she using contraception.<\/p>\n\n

"No way!" Luwana said. "Keep your legs closed: embed that in your brain. Tell him to keep his hands to himself. And if you can’t stand up for yourself, stand up for Daigan. You’ve got a lot of work ahead, giving him what he needs. Look around, Alexis. You need another baby in this picture?"
\n"No," Alexis said dully. Then she brightened: "Miss Luwana, maybe you can write me an excuse note, like for gym?"<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n

It makes an interesting footnote to all those Katrina stories that Luwana, the nurse, is black and her clients white.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A wonderful, grindingly sad story in this week’s New Yorker about teenage mothers in Louisiana. It’s not online — though well worth the cost of the print magazine — but there is an interview with the author on the web … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a> Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thewormbook.com\/hlog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thewormbook.com\/hlog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thewormbook.com\/hlog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thewormbook.com\/hlog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thewormbook.com\/hlog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=127"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.thewormbook.com\/hlog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thewormbook.com\/hlog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thewormbook.com\/hlog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thewormbook.com\/hlog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}