In this installment of Page 69,
we put Leyna Krow's I'm Fine, But You Appear to Be Sinking
Set up page 69 for us (what are we
about to read):
Page 69 of
occurs about three-fourths of the way through a story called “End Times,” which
is told from the perspective of a woman who can see into the future, past her
own death (of natural causes at an early age), to the year 2033 when the world
comes to an end. Her vision of the future focuses on her husband, Aaron, and
teenage son, Cole, and how they will cope with the environmental catastrophes leading
up to the apocalypse, as well as their shared grief of the protagonist’s
absence. On page 69 itself, Aaron visits
the protagonist’s gravesite while struggling to function under the weight of a
change in Earth’s gravity (one of the signs the end of the world is
approaching).
What’s the book about?
I’m Fine, But You Appear to Be Sinking is a
collection of short stories that twins the mundane with the bizarre in a
variety of different settings. The stories aren’t linked and the characters do
not all occupy the same universe, but they all share the common thread of
something being very off in an otherwise very normal situation. For example, in
“End Times” Aaron and Cole continue on with their domestic routines (school,
clubs, homework, work, meals, shopping, etc.) while the world literally
crumbles around them. These juxtapositions were a lot of fun to write. And I
hope they’re fun to read. Most of the stories are pretty dark, but there’s
humor to that darkness, and absurdity.
Do you think this page gives our
readers an accurate sense of what I'm Fine, But You Appear to Be Sinking about? Does it align itself with
the books overall theme?
Very much so! Page 69 begins
with this sentence “As Cole gets out of the car, Aaron will hand him his book
bag, then his octopus bucket, and wish him good luck in his international
negotiations.” That’s pretty typical. Cole is on his way to a Model United
Nations meeting at his high school, but he’s also got a baby octopus with him,
which he rescues earlier in the story and then keeps with him in a bucket for
the duration. That’s the way it is for the rest of the book, too. Pretty much
every primary character in each story has their own octopus in a bucket, so to
speak – something that’s evidence of them being pulled out of their normal,
everyday routine. But they don’t ever want to acknowledge it. Cole just goes
along, acting as if having an octopus in a bucket is totally normal. It’s just
like the title of the collection. These are characters, throughout, who can see
that others around them are in trouble, but refuse to acknowledge the trouble
that knocks at their own door.
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PAGE 69
I'M FINE BUT YOU APPEAR TO BE SINKING
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Leyna Krow lives in
Spokane, Washington with her husband and daughter. I'm Fine, But You Appear toBe Sinking is her first book.
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