THE PENTHOUSE

The spiral effect in this short-short from The New Yorker is excellent; a textbook example of a successful one-page* fiction.

Illustration Vanessa Saba for The New Yorker

The Penthouse by Helen Philipps is the retelling of a real-life comical moment made flesh. One whirls around a central spine that as subtext, is never quite fully made explicit. A great demonstration of showing not telling. The first-person-plural narrator sheds ideal vantage point to the story, and really we are lured into self-directed laughter effortlessly. Successive predicaments are amusing, the author captures impressions very well. Each line a launching pad into the next, and the narrative remains extremely focussed throughout. It’s very nimble. No frills or distractions. Shrewd distanciation. Also, impeccable titling of the piece with this motif of the penthouse, as contains the whole idea: it is the physical location and, it epitomises the whole experience.

Ego-inflation is a funny thing, which we often tend to figure in retrospect, because in real-time we’re all too often earnestly unaware, caught up. Gauche. We think we’re failing. But really we’re being initiated. What’d be freeing would be being true to self, not grasping.

*Jane Anne Phillips, “Cheers," (or) How I Taught Myself to Write.