Why Marina Keegan’s posthumous collection of fiction and essays is important, especially for Millennials.
by Paige Pritchard
My favorite paragraph from “The Opposite of Loneliness” is also its last. The book’s final piece, “Song for the Special” examines humanity’s innate desire to make a difference. Many works in the book touch on this theme, but it is most pronounced in this existential essay. The late author, Marina Keegan, reaches for permanence in a world doomed to destruction. The sun will die, the Earth will freeze, and, in Keegan’s own words, “Everything will be destroyed no matter how hard we work to create it.”
And yet, Keegan keeps writing.
Her prose moves forward with purpose, despite her own admission to our inconsequentiality. Despite our glaring impermanence on this Earth, Keegan still finds a reason to write. It is this hopeful and mysterious motivation that leads her to the essay’s final paragraph of clean, poetic prose:
“I read somewhere that radio waves just keep traveling outward, flying into the universe with eternal vibrations. Sometime before I die I think I’ll find a microphone and climb to the top of a radio tower. I’ll take a deep breath and close my eyes because it will start to rain right when I reach the top. Hello, I’ll say to outer space, this is my card.”
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We’re so young. We’re so young. We’re twenty-two years old. We have so much time.
In 2012 Marina Keegan died in a car accident just five days after her graduation from Yale. This tragic event silenced the voice of a promising young writer, a loss the literary world has mourned ever since. And yet, like the “eternal vibrations” mentioned in the paragraph above, her words continue to ripple through the reading community and beyond. She originally wrote the essay “The Opposite of Loneliness” as a graduation piece for her campus newspaper. When word of the accident spread, the essay was picked up by a number of digital publications. Within days it went viral, and millions of people read Keegan’s words of encouragement, now tinged bittersweet by her untimely passing:
“We’re so young. We’re so young. We’re twenty-two years old. We have so much time.”
Newscasters repeatedly delivered this line to the cameras, but it never became less harsh, or less inspiring. Such is the experience of reading The Opposite of Loneliness, the compilation of Keegan’s fiction and essays that was posthumously released last month. The writing is honest and engrossing, enough to make you forget that Keegan is gone. But then you read her thoughts on the future, short lines that express her worry over entering the writing industry, or the kind of mother she thinks she’ll be, and it hurts.
Posthumous publication is usually discussed in relation to established authors. Think David Foster Wallace’s The Pale King, Stieg Larson’s Millennium trilogy, or the remaining works of J.D. Salinger. Keegan never saw the canonizing success these authors experienced, yet her book continues to top the best-seller lists. I don’t know the entire history of posthumous publication, but I would argue that Keegan’s case is a unique one. Yes, she held an impressive resume for a recent college grad, her work having already appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, and NPR’s Selected Shorts. But such a sudden transference of promising young writer to posthumous publication is unprecedented.
While reading this book, I often wondered how Keegan would feel about the publication of these essays and stories. I’m sure many of them were still in the editing process. How would I feel if my drafts and school papers were printed for the world to see? What if I never had the chance to write the final draft? It’s uncomfortable to think about, but this was the only option presented to those Keegan left behind. Personally, if somewhat selfishly, I’m glad they chose to publish.
In the book’s introduction, her writing professor, Anne Fadiman, revisits the process it took to create this collection, detailing Keegan’s perfectionism along the way:
“As her parents and friends and I gathered her work, trying to find the most recent version of every story and essay, we knew that none of it was in exactly the form she would have wanted to publish. She was a demon reviser, rewriting and rewriting and rewriting even when everyone else thought something was done…Still, every time I reread these nine stories and nine essays, they sound exactly like her, and I don’t want to change a word.
Marina wouldn’t want to be remembered because she’s dead. She would want to remembered because she’s good.”
And she is good. I read through The Opposite of Loneliness in a quick week. I had refrained from reading the eponymous essay when it first went viral because, well, sometimes I just don’t like sad stories. And Keegan’s is undoubtedly sad. The main conversation about her book has centered on the tragedy that she’s gone, that she can’t produce more brilliant work. She was supposed to take a job at The New Yorker after graduation, and I can easily imagine reading her byline and the work that would follow. But the fresh pain of her tragic death has dulled over the past two years. For the book, this is a good thing. No one wants to criticize the work of someone recently passed, especially a young someone. Time and distance now allow readers to approach The Opposite of Loneliness with an unbiased critique, judging the book by its merits, rather than the author’s biography. I think that’s what Keegan would have wanted.
What led me to finally buy a copy was a friend’s Instagram. She posted a photo of the book’s cover, along with the caption “Picked this up tonight and couldn’t put it down.” In the comments she called it “funny, inspiring, sad, smart” and personally recommended it to me. It’s a rule of mine that when a well-read friend suggests a book, I acquiesce. I’ve discovered many of my favorite books this way: Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere, David Sedaris’s Me Talk Pretty One Day, Karen Russell’s Swamplandia, and John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars, to name a few. I can now add The Opposite of Loneliness to that list.
When it was published last month, book reviewers raved over Keegan’s writing. Words like “thoughtful”, “intelligent” and “self-aware” appeared alongside “humorous”, “tender”, and “heartbreaking”. I agree with all of these reviews, but find them lacking. All the appraisals I read were penned by older critics. They probably have better taste than I do, and can more easily identify good writing, but they’re not one of us. And by us, I mean a Millennial. When reading The Opposite of Loneliness, that makes all the difference.
As anyone who follows The New York Times knows, Millennials have become one of the media’s main punching bags, falling somewhere on the scale between Silicon Valley brogrammers and old white dudes. Admittedly, just as these two factions have their problems, so does our generation. Unfortunately, offending parties apparently speak for us as a whole. In the universal conversation about our generation’s future, we’ve been delegated to the sidelines–content to sit quietly as our elders call us lazy, spoiled, self-centered, and make it very clear that we are not shiny unicorns.
Keegan’s writing, however, is not quiet. In the book, she boldly asserts her talent as a developing ability, writing with youthful precocity. She uses phrases like “rural hipsterdom” and “text me back”, and references the jealous tactic of flipping through another person’s Facebook photos. Up until reading this, I’d only seen people address these actions with either blatant irony or strict demonization. Keegan embraces them as a way to honestly portray the early twenties post-grad. It’s an incredible relief to read.
Obviously Keegan’s experiences don’t apply to every Millennial out there. Few of us attended Ivy League schools. We don’t all vacation in Cape Cod. But I’d bet the majority of us have agonized over the time it takes for a crush to text back, or have mashed out an emotional Arghgfljshdfg! on our keyboard. Keegan’s characters are authentic in these actions, and it makes their stories all the more meaningful.
She encourages us to accept and celebrate the characteristics that define our generation; otherwise we’ll never develop our own identity.
I would like to say I mourn for Keegan, and I do send her family sincere sympathies. But the fact is, I didn’t know her. These stories and essays, though deeply personal, are but a brief introduction to a vibrant mind. I am sad that she can’t write for The New Yorker, or publish more work. I would have marked her book release date on my calendar, and followed her on Twitter. I do, however, see so much purpose in what little works of hers exist. By planting a flag on the best-seller list, Keegan brings attention and validation to young voices everywhere. She encourages us to accept and celebrate the characteristics that define our generation; otherwise we’ll never develop our own identity.
And though she’s not around to be the coveted “voice of our generation”, whatever that means, Keegan’s writing is poised to become a major influencer. I hope other writers find inspiration Keegan’s work. Her essays encourage creative pursuits and meaningful lifestyles. And her stories show that it’s okay to write about texting and Facebook, especially if you’re 22. Most of all, they prove that good writing can come from anywhere.
In her essay, “Even Artichokes Have Doubts”, Keegan writes about her fellow classmates accepting prefabricated jobs in the consulting or finance industry. She ends it with a hint of panic, pleading her creative cohorts to reconsider:
“I’m just scared about this industry that’s taking all of my friends and telling them this is the best way for them to be spending their time. Any of their time. Maybe I’m ignorant and idealistic but I just feel like that can’t possibly be true. I feel like we know that. I feel like we can do something really cool to this world. And I fear–at twenty-three, twenty-four, twenty-five–we might forget.”
This is an important book for everyone to read. It’s well written, it’s thoughtful, and it’s entertaining. But it’s especially important for my fellow Generation Y-ers. Because she’s right, we can do something really cool to this world. Maybe it just takes people like Marina Keegan to show us it’s possible.
Paige Pritchard is The Riveter’s managing editor. Follow her at @peapodpritchard.
