Tis the season… for soul-crushing short stories about disappointment, alcoholism, and heartache.
This week, Electric Literature is conducting a Sadness Survey in honor of Recommended Reading’s upcoming Christmas issue, “We Were Down” by Jason Porter. This is, of course, no ordinary survey. They don’t want to know about your holiday shopping habits, and they don't care about your income or your politics. What they want to know is, why are you so sad? So take a seat by the Christmas tree, tear open the wrapping of your darkest secrets, and take the survey.
The author of the saddest survey — judged by Jason Porter — will win a free phone session with a certified life coach and a bottle of gin from the NY Distilling Company. They'll also feature some of their favorite answers on Electric Literature’s blog. Need help getting inspired? No sweat, the good folks at Electric Lit, along with the aforementioned Porter, have whipped up this list of sad Christmas stories to help put you in the true spirit of the season.
"The Fir-Tree" by Hans Christian Andersen
"Neither the sunbeams, nor the birds, nor the red clouds which morning and evening sailed above him, gave the little Tree any pleasure."
Read it here.
Fairy tales are much darker than the Disney-fied versions we're used to, and Andersen's "Fir-Tree" is dark as hell. A sentient sapling is discontent with life in the forest. He's too small, and must watch on as all his companions are chopped down and hauled toward — he suspects — wonderful adventures. When his wish eventually comes true and he becomes a Christmas tree, we're reminded of that perennial lesson for children: Be careful what you wish for. The hopeful fir tree is soon set afire by Christmas decorations, then abandoned in a dark attic, until finally he's brought back to nature in a yard where he's laid to rest Fargo-style.
Sadness Rating: 12/12
Via artscape.us
"What Are You Going to Do with 390 Photographs of Christmas Trees?" by Richard Brautigan
"We’ll show the despair and abandonment of Christmas by the way people throw their trees out."
Read it here.
Richard Brautigan has always had a fascinating vision of America. Here, he sets his sights on the destructive nature of American Christmas. But he doesn't focus on the fractured families, nor on the salespeople martyred on Black Friday, and not even the reams of magnificent paper destined for the dump. It's 1963, the whole county is in a "tunnel of mourning" following JFK's assassination, and Richard spends Christmas in the sole company of a bottle of rum. After the holiday, he's disturbed by all the discarded Christmas trees "tossed out to lie there in the streets like bums." He and a friend start photographing the disgrace, though a few photos just aren't enough. But can you ever get your fill of misery and waste?
Sadness Rating: 10/12
"Glissando" by Katie Bellas
“I can be sure only that Ed, though girlish in his gossipy tendencies, is not ignorant of the basic knowledge all corrupt men share of one another: the knowledge that a walk across the lobby at ten-thirty at night to a lady-tenant’s apartment is always more than a walk across the lobby at ten-thirty at night to a lady-tenant’s apartment."
Read it here.
The two main ingredients for holiday stress are family time and financial struggle. Katie Bellas follows that recipe, but then she spices things up by adding infidelity and extortion. Despite the recession, an underhanded doorman, and a liaison with a loose-lipped neighbor, a man struggles to keep his mortgage and marriage from toppling over like an overburdened Christmas tree. To help you deal with the suspense, keep some potent eggnog nearby.
Sadness Rating: 9/12
