by D.W. White
July 23, 2021
D.W. White is a graduate of the M.F.A. Creative Writing program at Otis College in Los Angeles and is currently a Fellow at Stony Brook University's BookEnds program, at work on his first novel. He serves as the Fiction Editor for West Trade Review literary journal, where he also contributes essays and reviews. His short fiction has been published in Tulane Review and Trouvaille Review, and his nonfiction can be found in Chicago Review of Books. A Chicago ex-pat, he has lived in Long Beach, California, for seven years, where he works as a tutor and frequents the beach to hide from writer’s block.
In one sense, perhaps, all writing comes down to decision-making. This goes beyond, yet also includes, the obvious choices facing a writer: what to talk about, how to form a story around that ‘what,’ who to people that story with, and which details to give about them. These are all essential questions, to be sure, but there are other, less readily apparent, decisions to be made. How much of a story should be given to the reader at face value? How much does the writer trust her audience to be able to navigate this fictive world half-blind and feeling their way? Does the writer, in short, lay it all out for us, offering an easy read to the end, or does she take some chances with what she chooses to explicitly state and what she does not—does she allow the reader to meet the story halfway down the line, and, ultimately, to enjoy that much richer an experience?
Marisa Matarazzo’s latest story, “The Terrarium,” appearing in the fiftieth anniversary issue of the esteemed and always fearless Ploughshares, answers these essential questions fully and resolutely. It is a slice of a morning between two women on, it seems, a fairly early date, taking place in a world distant in time but close in feel. Our protagonist and her companion share pancakes and beer at a burned-out restaurant in a fractured future world. While we learn much about these two and the life they seek to share, Matarazzo eschews any readerly hand-holding or laborious exposition, keeping the tension and momentum at a sustained pitch throughout. Limiting her introductory materials, as it were, to a few early lines, which serve to set the scene and imbue the story with the unsettling, thoroughly compelling tone and feel it maintains throughout, Matarazzo indeed asks the reader to come distance towards her. In the limited space of short fiction, there is neither room nor time—elements that, in a spatio-temporal paradox, are often taken nonetheless, undercutting effectiveness and urgency—for the sort of straight ahead, “turning to the reader” backstory to which the writer often defaults and the audience rarely needs. That Matarazzo can achieve this here is remarkable and speaks to her belief in her story and the abilities she possesses in her technique. Because for all its recognizable humanity and fundamental statements about what remains when quotidian comforts are stripped away, “The Terrarium” immediately and crucially takes place in a distinct, dystopian universe, one that, at least for now, is not our own. Much like those comprising her debut collection, Drenched, this story burrows down into the granular of the human condition, zeroing in on the small gestures and quiet moments of a romantic relationship while letting the world rage wild around it. Although her world-building is complete and her setting full-bodied, Matarazzo never turns the camera to the crumbling cityscape her characters navigate, instead serve as a vibrant, if rather understated, backdrop to a swift and compelling human-centered narrative. In a remarkable dual narrative, much of the piece is lent over to a story from one of the character’s past—a past that, while remaining undefined, feels pointedly normal, underscoring the strangeness and unease of the fictive present. Throughout this memory, our protagonist is as distant from her date and her past as we are from the world itself, creating a compelling and grounding parallel between fictive universe and readerly experience. By the time we pull out of the memory and refocus on the primary narrative, we have long been fully submerged, and as a result, “The Terrarium,” with its swift turn to a sharp final act, is all the more effective. Ultimately, by trusting her reader to be willing and able to forge for themselves, Matarazzo renders a futuristic landscape rich in its construction and characters compelling in their own attempts to navigate it. 
©2021 West Trade Review
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A Quiet Confidence: Marisa Matarazzo’s “The Terrarium”
FICTION REVIEW
Image by Daniel Lincoln on Unsplash
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