The Other Side of the Lake

Abstract

Tag and Laure are young adults on the verge of the rest of their lives. In these stories, their recollections and imaginations mix together to complicate the already complicated question of what and who they will let define them. In “The Other Side of the Lake,” a visit to her childhood summer home recalls Laure to a relationship from her teens left behind at the advice of a therapist. “The Ghost Bike” shows Tag negotiating his identity as he is swept up in a relationship with the deterministic Laure. In “The Rope Swing,” a childhood memory gets blurry in the retelling when he shares it with her. Finally, “The Hunger” depicts a young Laure struggling to understand her parent’s divorce. Fragmented and asynchronous like memory, these narratives show characters struggling to unpack their pasts and understand their presents as they try to figure out what comes next.