Things to make and break

by May-Lan Tan

2018204 pages

In these eleven stories, Tan explores the idea that every relationship between two people is actually a relationship between three people: each relationship encompasses and relies upon an interstitial presence--another person, a former self, a future lover. Within this loose thematic constraint, a series of related worlds unspool. Teenagers in a band betray each other. A woman gets so obsessed with photos of her boyfriend's ex that she eventually contrives a way to meet her. A woman has a relationship with her sister's husband's brother that darkly, secretly parallels her sister's happy marriage. Each character is a mirror, double or proxy of someone else, hinting at the possibility that we seek out the same person in different bodies and churn through cycles of self-invention/-annihilation.