A portion of the final sentence in this story, placed there perfectly by Woiwode, wrapping up all the story’s words placed into a perfectly concise bullet shot directly into that spot in your mind holding memories, blasting it back into your active consciousness…directly connecting you with…” them”.
“--- all of them suspended for a second against the horizon, silent in the wind.”
You’ve witnessed the scene - I’ve witnessed it - “Them,” of course, in the sentence can be swapped out to fit your recalled scene, but for many of us, after reading this story, the “them” are our children.
It took less than 5 minutes into reading this story for my mind to drift back to reading and rereading the David Foster Wallace story Incarnations of Burned Children. The story shook me, and I shared my feelings with a coworker during discussions of life as new parents, as well as our mutual admiration of DFW.
This is another story where the point in life when you encounter it is so important. It does what great fiction does: offer an alternative perspective, placing you into the mind of another. But, as I’ve written about before, if I encountered this story at the age of 20, it perhaps might have impacted me differently. Even at the ages that my kids are at now, I know that if I come across this story again in a few years, my experiences would surely color its re-read.
Once again, I’ll pull a quote from the author featured in the anthology’s Contributor’s Notes
“I used to say (and so used to think, I would hope, that if fiction had a salubrious effect, that was secondary. Art, you know, art. But after living through many different sorts of responses over the years to my work, and especially to this particular story, I'm not so sure about that.
Isn't it important for fiction to bring about moments of stasis, of restoration — of healing, if you will? It was largely people who underwent some such experience who responded to "Silent Passengers" by writing to me.”
I was happy to encounter Larry Woiwode again. Incredibly, the last time I read him was 16 years ago.
Change - read in February 2010
First Born - read in June 2010
Reviewing my writing from 16 years ago, how his stories impacted me at that point in my life…man, it’s staggering how much the world and (selfishly) my life have changed.
I suppose that’s all a part of living, though.
Larry Woiwode died in 2022.
The picture of Woiwode at the top of this post is from 1976. I think he looks badass.
