SmokeLong Quarterly

What is a “fuck face”?

It’s a face one makes while fucking and/or being fucked.

Was the lack of names something you did purposefully, or did it just happen? What happens when we give or deny a character a name?

This is something I do occasionally. In this case, I don’t remember making the decision; it just happened. I’m usually more deliberate than that, but it felt unavoidable in this piece. I hate to make blanket statements about naming characters, so much depends on context, but I do think an absence of names can create a sense of unmediated connection between the reader and the subjects. Pronouns don’t carry the baggage or create the barriers that names can.

Why do they break up? Does either one ever know what is going on with the other?

At the risk of spoiling reader interpretations… Something along the lines of never being satisfied with the selves they were presenting each other with and/or never presenting themselves to the other in a genuine manner. It’s complicated. Even in real life, who ever completely understands what goes wrong?

What happens to these people? Is there hope for them? For him? For her?

Again, at the risk of spoiling reader interpretations… They’re young, they’ll likely figure themselves out, but not in time to save their relationship.

What have you read recently that you loved?

Currently reading “The Mezzanine” by Nicholson Baker. Such mundane details are so intimately and lovingly described. It’s deeply engaging. Not only do I feel like I know the narrator, I feel a bit like I am the narrator. I’m in his head, anyway. Or maybe he’s in mine.