"Love Potions" May Be More New Yorker Promotional Fiction

 In a recent post, I raised the question of whether at least some of the weekly fiction published by The New Yorker is promotional in nature.  In other words, is it fundamentally a form of advertising for the author or more likely, for the author's publisher and if so, does the publisher pay the magazine to run these pieces, or perhaps give them to The New Yorker without charge?

These questions came to mind because often what passes for a short story is an excerpt from a new novel about to be published or just published.

The story, "The Case For And Against Love Potions" by Imbolo Mbue in the March 22, 2021 issue of the magazine appears to fall into this category, but with a twist.  Instead of an excerpt from Mbue's just-published book "How Beautiful We Were," the story I will refer to as "Love Potions" is an outtake from "How Beautiful." In other words, it is material originally written with the book in mind, but which didn't make it into the book.

To put it another way, still using the film analogy, this is material that has been picked up off the cutting room floor, dusted off and printed in The New Yorker.

That doesn't mean it is bad.  Indeed, "Love Potions," set in a subsistence farming community somewhere in Africa (presumably Cameroon), has a certain charm to it.  Commendably devoid of the all-to-familiar "craft" one associates with Writers Workshop-influenced fiction, the story reads like a folk tale, but for adults as opposed to children.

In a nutshell, it explores the idea that while humans need to love and be loved, there are other reasons for marriage, stated in simple, declarative sentences replete with a lot of down-home wisdom.

If it has a flaw, it's because it reads exactly like what Mbue says it is in the usual New Yorker author interview. The first draft of the story, Mbue explains, was a very short story about a character named Wonja. Too short and too one-sided (just the case against a potion), a second story about a character named Gita was tacked on.

If I were Mbue's editor, I would have said: "If you want this published, you have got to better integrate these two tales." As it stands. it reads like two separate stories, but with no pause in between. At a minimum, a better transition is needed, but finding a way to weave the tales together would be even better.

Although it may not be evident to readers, Mbue explains her story can be viewed as a critique of the patriarchal order of society. Fair enough, but I don't think that comes across as strongly as the aspirational nature of life as it unfolds in an African village setting.