Claire’s photo is reposted and re-tweeted in various contexts. Claire’s African-American hall mate promptly sees the photo and tweets her outrage. It doesn’t take long for the photo to become a subject of intense debate and controversy. Claire barely registers the significance of her clothing choice, until the boyfriend posts the photo to Facebook. She’s goaded into wearing the swimsuit by a temporary boyfriend, and she goes along with it, hoping the “trashy” bikini will piss off her new stepmother. “Boys Go to Jupiter” tells the story of Claire, a white, first-year student at fictional Dennis College in New England, who finds herself at the center of escalating controversy after a photograph of her wearing a Confederate flag bikini goes viral. Roxane Gay recently selected the story for the 2018 edition of the iconic Best American Short Stories series. Clearly, I’m not the only one to have felt its power. Evans read her recently published short story, “Boys Go to Jupiter,” and I’ve been thinking about it ever since. In the spring of 2018, the fiction writer Danielle Evans visited the small, midwestern liberal arts college where I teach in the English department.
Criticism / Molly K. Robey :: The End of College? ::