Another review from my New Yorker backlog. It’s an exercise meant to build confidence and help me better my fiction writing.
A quiet story centering around a scientist impacted by the consequential defunding by the Trump administration. She’s studying bees, and her quietness comes from that practice. Searching for answers in solitary bees seems to be a clear metaphor for the world today, where each of us looks at the individual rather than the collective. Whether intended or not, this comes through with the narrator’s parental experience, too. Her youngest daughter is awakening to the world and questioning her mother’s decisions. While the oldest is heartbroken and becoming aware of her shortcomings, she blames her mother for them. Throughout all this, the mother is even-keeled, never snapping or even conversing much. In response to her daughter’s addiction to an iPad game, she prints off studies about video game addiction and tells her to take some quiet time in her room to read those. So within her hive, she’s a queen bee that’s very understanding and compassionate.
That quiet energy guides us through other meaningful interactions, one with an intern whom she has to let go due to funding cuts, and ultimately, with her mentor and lead, who has been cut as well. The young scientist intern was described perfectly with his enthusiasm for the bees and the research. Then she relays the fact that they’re being cut matter-of-factly. The response is swift and a gut punch to the intern, but we only see that they’re in a hurry to leave. It’s heartbreaking. The mentor is older, wiser, and carries the story to its apex. We see him come to terms with his life’s work being cast aside, and he’s decided to check out the beaches. This seems like something people care about, normal people. And the story delves into feelings of alienation near the end, so this seems to be a callback to that. The scientist wants to come to terms with a populist president cutting funding, so he’s trying to make sense of it all by going to the beach, where ordinary people often find solitude. It’s doubtful that it will work, though.
I need to develop a ranking system. I could consider both the technical aspects and the emotional, philosophical, and spiritual resonance. A four-tier marker for how well a story executes. This one would score high marks on that scale. It’s well-constructed, easy to read, and has a deeper meaning. I’ll think on that, but for now, consider it recommended.