The Companion

The Companion is an anti-bildungsroman, a novel about the disability or refusal to grow. Disability to grow has a history of course: Pale, brittle and vulnerable children children are as light as feathers, children weigh

next to nothing when adults try to pick them up to hold them, children get smaller and smaller through the novel. This is the history of how such children alternately rebel against and are crushed by the adult world.

There are dwarves accompanying them, these dwarves follow them like their shadows as if these transparent children cast no shadows of their own.

- Jale Parla

“With your poor grasp of cause and effect relationships, and your worship of people who go out and spend all their money, as if that’s what it takes to be ‘important.’ Of course, it doesn’t take much to satisfy someone like you. They’ve been mass-producing your type for the past 10-20 years. I see versions of you everywhere, Mary Jane Primrose.”

“I may not be the kind of person who prides myself on being troubled, arrogant, and rude,” she says, raising one eyebrow at me  her old habit again. “That is true. But I see that I was mistaken to try to talk to you about anything except for strictly business. We don’t even know if you have the ability to talk to people without fighting.”

“The answer to that question probably can’t be classified as ‘strictly business, ” I say. The bottle of Jack Daniels is still on the table from. last night. I pour some into the glass and take a sip.