Sara Jaffe - Dryland

Ben was flipping through records. He said, Are you the kind of person who likes to hear sad music when you’re sad, or angry music?

I said, I listen to the same music all the time. I thought of the wince and the whine, the fervent longing in Country Feedback. I said, What do you mean by angry music?

Ben said, Let’s go with loud guitars. I think that’ll do you good. Unless you’re hungover?

The beginning of the song Ben put on sounded like a chainsaw without a tree, and the chainsaw sound kept on in the background while the drums did a military march. The singer sounded pissed and languid, as if no one could make him feel worse or better. There was a line about someone being shot, and a line about all men being slime. That chainsaw growl was louder than my feelings but also a version of them, their loud unspooling. Ben said, People will tell you that old Sonic Youth is better, and I’m not going to argue, but that is a fucking good song.

I said, Will you tape it for me?

Ben got out a big metal bowl and started mixing batter. He said, Coffee or tea? and gave me a ceramic jar of tea bags to look through. He said, You know, I’ve been thinking about that bitch Alexis.

I said, She’s not a bitch.

Ben said, I know, I’m sorry. She’s not a bitch.

I hadn’t told Ben about every single thing, but I had told him enough. I said, I didn’t think she even liked Melanie that way.

Ben said, She probably doesn’t. It’s a thing, straight guys like to see two girls get it on.

I said, That’s stupid.

Ben said, I know.

There was some small relief in knowing it had been a show. Or maybe that made it worse. I said, Do you think that’s why Alexis did stuff with me, too?

Ben poured a pale circle of batter into the pan. He said, No, I think she really liked you. He edged the spatula around the circle and said, And who knows, maybe she likes Melanie or Melanie likes her too. Those girls have got issues.

That made me laugh. Only Ben would say they were the ones with the issues.

ON THE BUSride home I put my head against the window. I hadn’t slept enough. When I got home I’d get into bed and sleep as long as I wanted. I’d tell my parents we’d stayed up until dawn watching movies. They wouldn’t care. I’d tell them I was exhausted from swimming the 500, and they wouldn’t ask me how I’d done because they didn’t want to put any pressure on me. They wouldn’t ask me and so I wouldn’t tell them how in the middle of the race, after Erika had dipped 11 and I knew I’d made it halfway through, I’d felt a sort of high. The water held me and I was sure I was schooling it, that Coach would see me and let me stay in Lane Six. If Alexis had seen me in that brief moment when I was on rails, I was on air, she would have decided to dump Greg and forget Melanie and choose me. Or she’d have kept whoever she wanted and kept choosing me, which was selfish, so what. She’d promise me I was her favorite when I told her everything I knew about my brother — how he was in Berlin for good, staying up all night, not swimming, killing us with his dying by not telling us.

It was raining, surprise, hard enough that I could see where the drops sunk holes in the river’s skin. I wished I had my Walkman. I wished I had it and that Ben had already taped that Sonic Youth song for me so I could put it on loud and the clawed guitars could tear and balm me. The bus got to the west side and passed the River Market, where shoppers crowded under the stalls’ awnings to stay dry. I would call Erika back later, after my nap. I might tell her Ben and my brother had fooled around in high school. She might ask me more about Ben’s boyfriend. I’d tell her I hadn’t met him yet, but that I’d heard he was really cute. I might tell her they’d met at a bar called the Anchor, just to see what she’d say.

Thank you to the Regional Arts and Culture Council, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts (VCCA), Vermont Studio Center, and RADAR Lab for providing me with space and time to write this book. Thank you to Masie Cochran for being dedicated to Dryland and for your amazing ability to know what’s not enough and what’s too much, and to the rest of the Tin House crew. Thank you to Mark Jaffe, for being my brother and always my friend. Thank you to the many writing teachers I have had over the years — particularly Noy Holland, who helped me see that language is everything, and Camille Roy, who split open my sense of what narrative could do. Thank you Lynne Tillman for caring about young writers. My writing community/support network is spread out like points of light on a map and I am so glad it includes Jason Daniel Schwartz, Andrea Lawlor, Sara Marcus, Amanda Davidson, Megan Milks, Leni Zumas, Susan Steinberg, Alicia Jo Rabins, Samiya Bashir, Pete Rock, Susan Carlton, Donal Mosher, Mike Palmieri, Lucy Corin, Michelle Tea, and Lidia Yuknavitch, whose advice and feedback at various points in the process were invaluable. For being my number-one reader back since our days holding writing group at The Gatekeeper, thank you Jess Arndt, brilliant writer, reader, and friend. Thank you to Noah Hazel in ways I don’t know yet. And infinitely huge thank you to Nadia Cannon, for supporting me in every way possible through the writing of this book, and always making me feel capable and loved.

“Remarkable. It’s realism, but its realism brushes ever so deftly against the allegorical, making the novel shimmer, part diary, part dream.”

— MAGGIE NELSON, The Argonauts

“Sara Jaffe is a damn fine writer and an important new voice.”

— JUSTIN TORRES, We the Animals

“I love it. I don’t know that I’ve ever read a book that felt more sincere, that was so unbesmirched by knowing irony or commentary or authorial interventions. It’s a rare and sweet thing.”

— PETER ROCK, The Shelter Cycle

“ Dryland is a gorgeous, layered, meticulous, clamoring, beating heart of a thing about a sullen teenager swimming and not swimming, kissing and not kissing, in Portland in the days of grunge. It will make you want to swim there and back twenty times without stopping.”

— SARA MARCUS, Girls to the Front

“A coming-of-age story about a young girl’s growing awareness — of sexuality, loss, and family truths. . [W]e relive the awkward agonies of adolescence, so well-sketched by Jaffe. . Moving sideways with its weight of secrets, this novel never strikes a false note.”

— KIRKUS

© NADIA CANNON

SARA JAFFE’s writing has appeared in publications including Fence, NOON , and BOMB . She coedited The Art of Touring (Yeti, 2009), drawing on her experience as guitarist for post-punk band Erase Errata. She lives in Portland, Oregon.