"Break it Down" Reading on NPR This American Life

I had one of those driveway moments today. You know them - you're listening to a story in your car but you've already made it home, so you listen (somewhat pathetically) to the rest as you sit in your dark car in the driveway.

NPR played a reading of "Break it Down," a collection of short stories by Lydia Davis as a part of it's "Numbers" show. It breaks down how much you spend to love, but ends up defining love in sort of concrete terms. I haven't read the book, but if this story is a reflection of the other short stories, it's totally worth the time investment.

The narrator in the short story spends 800 dollars on a week-long love affair and breaks down the cost of loving the woman through the entire week. He includes the time he is sleeping and unconsciously thinking of her to the time when he is in a coffee shop with her.

If you calculate the actual time making love, 1ce a day for two hours, it would be about 100 dollars a day. But if you divide that by all the touches, the moments spent together, the time thinking about her, he breaks it down to much, much less. "You're with each other all day long and it keeps happening, the touches and smiles, and it all adds up...."


The book is shown below:


I also really enjoyed reading this blog review from Lit Matters.

Link to NPR's This American Life section that lists Break it Down