Housewife by Amy Hempel

Jules et Jim.

Flash fiction really doesn't do much for me. I can appreciate the craft behind it and I’m all for brevity but there’s a point where minimalism starts to feel less like storytelling and more like a writing prompt scribbled on a Post-it. Amy Hempel’s Housewife falls squarely into that territory for me. It’s a single sentence, so slight it practically floats away. A woman is having an affair and the most intriguing part is her habit of whispering “French film” to herself, like she’s casting a spell.

Here is the story and see what you make of it:

|"She would always sleep with her husband and with another man in the course of the same day, and then the rest of the day, for whatever was left to her that day, she would exploit by incanting, “French film, French film.”|

Is there supposed to be a hidden depth here, or is Hempel simply trolling the reader, inviting us to dig for meaning that may not actually be there?

Honestly, I still can’t make heads or tails of it. Similar to a lot of flash fiction I’ve read, I doubt it’s going to stick with me. But the mention of “French film” did at least nudge my brain back toward French New Wave cinema of the 1960s/1970s. Those dreamy, messy, wonderfully impulsive films like Jules et Jim and Breathless. Maybe that’s the connection: the sense of romantic chaos, the blurred lines between passion and routine, the way life feels like a series of jump cuts. If nothing else, it reminded me that I’m probably overdue for a rewatch. 

So I guess that’s something.