by Jane Smiley
First published 2018
Maria sits at her kitchen table, watching steam rise from her untouched coffee. She begins to count her yawns, marking each one as a small rebellion against the weight of ordinary days. Twenty yawns become twenty windows into a life that feels suspended between what was promised and what arrived. Her husband reads his newspaper. Her children move through their routines. The neighborhood continues its predictable rhythms. But Maria's counting becomes something else entirely, a way of measuring not just boredom but the spaces between expectation and reality. Each yawn pulls her deeper into questions about the choices that brought her here and the ones that might still be possible. Smiley transforms the mundane act of yawning into a meditation on the quiet desperations that live inside seemingly content lives. Maria discovers that paying attention to the smallest gestures can reveal the largest truths about who we are when nobody is watching.
Genres: domestic-fiction, family-life, contemporary, 21st-century
Vibes: emotional-atmospheric, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: character-study, quiet-contemplation
Setting: Kitchen
Period: Ordinary Days
32 pages · Hardcover · Editorial Corimbo S.L.