By: Mariah Geletko
On the first of December, we will welcome Caitlin Horrocks to Penn State through the Mary E. Rolling Reading Series. From 7:30pm-9pm in the Foster Auditorium, 102 Paterno Library, you can come and listen to Horrocks read and talk about some of her fiction and creative non-fiction works. Her stories include “Mermaid Knife” published in the 27.1 issue of Gulf Coast, “Sun City” in the 2011 issue of The New Yorker, and “The Lion Gate” in the 74th issue of the Barcelona Review.
Horrocks has been published in established literary magazines such as Tin House, The Southern Review, The New Yorker, and The Paris Review. Her collection of short stories, This Is Not Your City, won the 2008 Spokane Prize for Short Fiction, and her stories have appeared in collections such as Best American Short Stories 2011 and the 2009 edition of THE PEN/O Henry Prize Stories.
Whether it’s her characters that draw you in or the immersive description of background and setting details, Horrocks takes you on an up-close adventure into the lives of her characters. For example the very first paragraph of “Sun City” she writes,“They floated into the afternoon in their little stucco submarine, the blinds shut against the sunlight and the swamp cooler whistling on the roof. Bev sat on the couch, Rose knelt on the matted carpet, and in the artificial air the two women wrapped jewelry in tissue paper and placed it in egg cartons.”
Across her stories you can see the development of her characters through the dialogue and plot of the story, which makes for an easy and exciting read. Horrocks writes with strategically placed expressions that evoke emotion from the reader and helps one connect to whatever story she is telling — in a way that makes you feel like you’re a part of her story. You may read one of her stories and find yourself questioning what she talks about, “Do they really eat Guinea pigs in South America?” (“Sun City”). Or even getting a little grossed out, “They roast them whole, eyes, and toenails, and everything.”
In her exploration of topics such as death, sexuality, and family, Horrocks is able to push the boundaries on just how far a story can take you through time. In her piece “Sun City” she introduces all of these topics within the first page through the main character, Rose. We learn that Rose told her mother, Iris, she was gay “after a tonsillectomy still high on painkillers”, her grandmother, Vera, has just suddenly died of a heart attack, and Iris and Vera did not speak to each other. We see Rose start to question how happy her grandmother was and if she actually had any love in her life before she died. Horrocks helps us feel just as confused as Rose as she goes through her grandmothers’ belongings, taking us through flashbacks and old memories. She never fails at taking care of her readers and making sure they’re engaged.
Horrocks is currently the Fiction Editor for The Kenyon Review and teaches classes in intermediate and advanced fiction and creative non-fiction writing at Grand Valley State University in Michigan. Enroll and you could possibly be in an English class taught by Horrocks or you could come on down to Paterno Library in the beginning of December and meet her for yourself. See you there!
For more information, visit: www.caitlinhorrocks.com/