Interlude

Image courtesy Bernard MARTI via Wikimedia Commons

Elaine Hsieh Chou wrote three different versions of her debut novel, Disorientation, a bitingly funny, searing indictment of the racism and whiteness of academia. “‘Interlude,’ Chou told Guernica, “is taken from the first version, which included four ‘interludes,’ written in a very different tone from the rest of the novel, that were extended flashbacks to a pivotal moment in each of the four main character’s lives. This was Ingrid’s.”

The compelling remnant depicts a painful and devastating episode of Ingrid’s life — and a fascinating window into the author’s creative process.

–Autumn Watts for Guernica

Anaheim, 1983

Ingrid Yang lost her virginity to Stephen Greene in the den of his parents’ house, on a puke-orange sofa with doilies on the arms. She wondered what exactly she was losing, since it did not feel like he was losing anything. She had an image of herself being eaten away, neat chomps taken out of her arms and thighs as above her, Stephen grew larger, more substantial. He was gaining something — but what?

To distract herself from the pain — pain that was raw and unrelenting and somehow, sour — she studied him. Stephen’s eyelashes were nothing like hers: overpopulated and sturdy, rather than sparse and thin. She had to resist reaching up to flick them. The freckles on his shoulders, too, were a source of unfamiliar fascination.

Adding to the surreal film that clung to everything was the situation she found herself in. The couch reeking of onion dip. The TV shouting an episode of . Stephen jerking his hips into her as his