After the tragic death of a
2012 Yale graduate, her parents and teachers decided to publish a collection of
her fiction and non-fiction. The young author was Marina Keegan. The book is The Opposite of Loneliness, a spunky,
yet polished, journey into the struggles of the young generation.
Throughout the collection,
Keegan’s voice as a writer is effectively conveyed, which calls for a nod of
appreciation to those who chose which pieces to include. Although Anne Fadiman,
one of Keegan’s teachers, states in the introduction that Marina would have
wanted to revise the pieces more before publication, they are nevertheless
polished. None of the stories seems unfinished, and the essays are precise in
their scope.
Always humorous, Keegan keeps
her audience engaged through her shocking statements. For example, Keegan
begins an essay about celiac disease with a list of items that she will
instruct the nurse to bring her on her deathbed—goldfish, Oreos, cold beer—and
the reader begins to wonder why these items are related. After a bit of
suspense, Keegan reveals that these food items all contain gluten, which is
harmful to those with celiac disease. (Keegan herself has the disease she is
writing about.) It is a nostalgic way to begin an essay about a serious topic.
In both her fiction and
essays Keegan does not refrain from writing about the struggles of her age,
which led one critic to label her “a new voice of her generation.” Does writing
about drug addiction and the pain of undefined relationships really make Keegan
a superb writer though? Sure, Keegan expresses the moral longing of a
generation, but she never comes to any answers. For some readers, this may be
problematic. Is it okay to ask the questions, but not to answer them?
However, Keegan’s overall attitude
towards the world remains one of hope. She senses the potency of her youth and
seeks to convey this to her Yale classmates in the titular essay, “What we have
to remember is that we can still do anything. We can change our minds. We can
start over.” Some of Keegan’s other essays, such as “Song for the Special,”
point toward this hope and remind readers that they can change. And this is
where Marina Keegan’s true brilliance as a writer lies—in sparking a light in
her readers’ hearts.
