“A Pin for the Swallowing” by Clare Beams / Conjunctions Journal
A tiny thing can do a lot of harm when it’s sharp enough…
One of the benefits that comes with my random scouring of the internet for great, new short stories to profile is the manner of introduction I get to “new” authors. They’re new to me, but many of them are well established, with story collections published and, in many cases, acclaimed novels that I just haven’t crossed paths with.
There’s something magical about being bowled over by a story unexpectedly. Of having that great feeling that builds slowly, line by line, that you’re reading something exceptional, without having been bludgeoned by any marketing bombast preparing you for the “singular voice” you’re about to be treated to. It’s just you as a reader and what’s on the page: one bold choice after another, until an entire architecture of talent is arrayed before you.
Clare Beams has written that story collection (“We Show What We Have Learned”) and those acclaimed novels (“The Garden,” “The Illness Lesson”) and her short stories have appeared in One Story, n+1, Ecotone, The Common, Kenyon Review, Hayden’s Ferry Review, among many others, and she’s garnered more praise for her work than you can shake a stick at.
I’ve got We Show What We Have Learned on order, so for now it’s just potential energy by way of an empty space in my mailbox. But “A Pin for the Swallowing” (2,450 words) in Conjunction Journal is right here, right now, and it’s full of fantastic editorial choices that you’ll want to add to your quiver of craft arrows.
Everything—I’m constantly reminded—hinges on point of view.
Who is doing the telling? Who is doing the listening? And how, exactly, is that telling being voiced, is that listening being received?
In “A Pin for the Swallowing,” we get a monologue from “Miss Edith Larch, age ninety-three, at the Larch family mansion in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 1981.” That’s the first line of text. We’re immediately rooted in a time and a place.
No, goose, I don’t talk about that.
That’s the second line. Who is goose? What is it that Edith won’t talk about? The hook is already set, at only seven words in.
Here’s what immediately follows:
The other things you could ask me are legion. Why, look, ask me about this room! This beautiful room where I had my beautiful childhood in this beautiful city that is, as you know, mine. Don’t you want to know about that?
It seems that goose has asked the question about the topic that Edith won’t discuss. I’ve got so many questions about goose already. It’s a childish nickname (that cries out for “silly” as a preamble), so goose is a child, yes?
But do we need to know anything more about Edith—beyond the “family mansion”—than the very easy possible-mis-read that she sees the “beautiful city” of Pittsburgh as hers?
Goose is quickly labeled as a “funny young miss,” so a picture is developing there, and we get some of the details of that room, which has been preserved as the childhood bedroom Edith has always known, one that her night nurse slept in versus the “different kind of nurse” she has now. So maybe Edith’s end is near?
There’s a very good reason why “A Pin for the Swallowing” is a monologue, and there’s a great slow-burn-build to that revelation. But the idea of that approach merits special attention.
I know I fall into the habit of dropping into standard narrative devices when I start a new story, seeing as I’m usually flush with excitement to get a good idea on the page. But staying open to the idea of tinkering with POV is vital.
“A Pin for the Swallowing” could be a dialogue. Goose could be formally introduced, we could hear her voice, get her questions as lines of dialogue. But the mystery of her, the fact that only Edith hears her, and that we take away only what we can infer adds a texture and a nuance to everything in the story, which elevates the whole.
Elevation of the whole is a way better goal than the simple deployment of a standard POV out of necessity. Are you thinking about the subtle recalibrations you can make (five degrees left?, ten degrees right?) to all the major elements of your stories to raise everything to a new level?
Once Clare Beams has established Edith and goose, she’s on to greater ends in the slow unfolding of the story of the Larch family. And no one takes more prominence than Edith’s older sister, the “Treasured Maude,” who died at six and “undid” the entire clan. Maude haunts Larch manor by way of portraits of her, placed by her adoring father in every room.
When he spoke her name it was like he was invoking a saint. Mother could never talk about her at all.
We’re quickly enmeshed in the tangled branches of the Larch family tree, which feels forever stuck in the throw-back of time, like a mashup of Dickens and Poe. As Edith puts it:
It won’t ever get to be 1982 in here, or 1983 either. It will always be 1890…
The way Maude meets her end and the effect it has on the Larch family spools out in increasingly creepy tendrils. To set the proper mood, try to read the last half of the story by the light of a candelabra in a drafty great room (you’ll want those long, shifting shadows running over the wainscotting…)
I’ll leave you with this wonderful, moody description Edith gives us of another painting, this one a double-portrait, of her at eighteen with her father, Pittsburgh’s great steel tycoon:
Everybody talks about the composition, how I’m like my father’s shadow, both of us in profile, him in the foreground, me in the background, but the painter didn’t seem that thoughtful. And I’m in bright white, my father in dark gray, and that’s not the way a shadow works, is it.
Edith’s eyes will have been cut-out in that painting, no doubt, so that someone in the space behind the wall can watch you as you read…
Is that you, goose?
From their website: “For more than four decades, Conjunctions has established itself as the preeminent home for writers from around the world who challenge convention with work that is formally innovative, culturally transformative, and ahead of its time. We embrace taking risks and pride ourselves on publishing established masters while debuting unknown writers.”
Their biannual anthology of new writing appears every spring and fall in print and generally collects pieces that form a conversation around a central theme. Because these volumes are book-length, they’re able to publish long-form work, which other journals often cannot accommodate.
Their free weekly online journal showcases the work of a single writer each week, giving them a place to publish the exceptional work that doesn’t fit into the theme of a given anthology.
Submissions via Submittable twice a year, during their fall and winter reading periods. Follow Conjunctions on Instagram, Facebook, and Bluesky or subscribe to their newsletter for the earliest information about reading periods for each issue.
While there are no official restrictions regarding word count, most of the manuscripts they select for publication are under 8,000 words long.
Many thanks to Clare Beams and Conjunctions Journal for the stately, steely manor that is “A Pin for the Swallowing.”
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