Welcome to another installment of If My Book, the Monkeybicyclefeature in which authors shed light on their recently released books by comparing them to weird things. This week Claire Hopple writes about Tired People Seeing America, her story collection published by Dostoevsky Wannabe.
If Tired People Seeing Americawere a school, it would be a public one in the suburbs.
If it were a hallway, it’d be that one near the cafeteria with a square of fluorescent light perpetually burnt out. The one on whose floor you like to create elaborate scuff mark patterns.
If it were a class, it would be Social Studies taught by a football coach who only goes by “Coach” and performs feats of strength in front of the kids when they start to lose focus.
If it were a science project, it would be a zoology diorama. Your mom would have stayed up late to superglue most of it together the night before.
If it were a part of the Presidential Physical Fitness Test, it would be the Shuttle Run. No, not the V-Sit Reach, you creep.
If it were a field trip, it would be a visit to the Natural History Museum, but the kind where you can touch some of the exhibits without getting in trouble.
If it were an instrument from music class, it would be those ribbed wooden sticks that you rub together anticlimactically and the [insert NYT bestseller here] would be the bedazzled maracas your best friend grabbed first.
If it were a superlative, it would be Most Likely to Become a Nomad.
If it were a lunch tray, it’d be the one with the Strawberry Shortcake sticker permanently stuck to the bottom of it. It’d be a green tray with brown and blue speckles and look slightly faded from the industrial-strength dish cleaner.
If it were a classmate, it’d be the one that you told your deepest, darkest secrets to. The one with the honest—albeit slightly forgettable and elusive—face.
If it were a yearbook photo backdrop, it’d be the one with lasers. Duh.
Claire Hopple is the author of ;Too Much Of The Wrong Thing (Truth Serum Press, 2017). She lives in Asheville, North Carolina. Her fiction has appeared in Hobart, Heavy Feather Review, Timber, and others. More at clairehopple.com, and follow her on Twitter at @clairehopple.
