"A, S, D, F" Is a Text That Flows From Childhood Sex Abuse

I hesitate to call "A, S, D, F," a recent New Yorker fiction offering, a story since it isn't much of one. Instead, let's just call it a text, which is how a contemporary literary academic would refer it to it in any event. It's a text not so much about childhood sex abuse as it is a text that derives from such abuse.

In a nutshell, it's about a man who is going nowhere in life, which, come to think about it, characterizes a lot of New Yorker fiction these days. Also, like most current New Yorker offerings, this piece is promotional in nature, It's taken from a book of short stories by Saïd Sayrafiezadeh called "American Estrangement" scheduled to be published in August 2021.  My guess is that in return for printing this, the publisher, W.W. Norton & Co., gave it to the New Yorker free of  charge and made the author available for the usual interview as well. As a subscriber, I can't help wondering if a subscription price discount might be in order.

The protagonist of the piece seems to have one notable talent: he can type 70 words a minute on a manual typewriter with commendable if not total accuracy and as such seems to be of value to his employer, the owner of what amounts to a vanity art gallery in Aspen. Colorado. From that comes the title -- the first four keys upon which the fingers of one's left hand typically rest as one gets ready to type.

Touch typing is muscle or body memory and unlike mental memory, is arguably never forgotten. In this case, the body memory of typing is an allegory for the body memory of childhood sex abuse, which also apparently can't be forgotten even if suppressed. I use the word "apparently" only because I did not experience any such abuse myself and thus hesitate to say anything definitive about it.

Well down into the text, readers are told, more of less in passing, that when the unnamed protagonist was a child, his mother once left him with  neighbor and something happened. "No name, no face, no address. In other words, nothing actionable. I assume the doctor would say the memory has intentionally been buried."  

But clearly, not entirely.

In the New Yorker author interview, one learns that Mr. Sayrafiezadehthe himself was sexually abused as a child and is still attempting to come to terms with it -- in part at least by crafting this particular text. It apparently wasn't easy because according to the author, "A, S, D, F" went through about 20 drafts before emerging in its current form. As such, does it ultimately make a lot more sense to the author than it will to most readers?  I wouldn't be surprised if that were the case.

But then there is a familiar trope at the end: the protagonist, clearly submissive in nature, meets a woman of the other persuasion. Are they right for each other?  Not even the author knows, readers of the interview learn.