Abstract:
In The Weather Channel and Other Stories, a collection of short fiction, Vanessa
Senter examines the human need to confine oneself to specific spaces—both real and
imagined, and the effects—both internal and external—occurring when people limit
themselves to the spaces they have created. Each story focuses on a character at war
within—constantly undercutting decisions with more decisions, ideas with new
ideas—in order to cope with the problems regarding theses limiting spaces. In “Death
and Cupcakes,” a quirky adolescent discovers her limits within her Jewish family as
her grandmother resists settling into her final stage of life. In “One Hundred
Oranges,” three disposophobic sisters use their belongings to cut themselves off from
the world in order to avoid the confines of social interaction. In “Bunny Bunny Rabbit
Rabbit,” a woman fails to balance her mother’s superstitions with her own need to
survive, and struggles to maintain control after killing a group of rabbits on a highway.
Finally, in “The Weather Channel,” the self-inflicted trappings of everyday life are
highlighted by a woman’s relationship with her sexuality, her husband, her only
friend, and the unrelenting heat of the Sonora desert.
