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Commentary on
“Aboard the S.S. Arabian Nights”

Matt Gillick

I always want to make sure I am trying something different project by project. I think if writers tell a story a certain way and get comfortable in that space, then they’ve given up trying to be better. Also, experimenting is fun. While this story might not appear experimental, I argue it is. For the more conventional New Yorker short stories, this yarn might appear to be a house of cards. “Aboard the S.S. Arabian Nights” has a chain narrative structure, no direct dialogue, no prevailing plot, and it’s over thirty pages long. It has all the potential to be a bore, some navel-gazing slouch of a tale. My personal definition for good fiction is that every word, every phrase needs to sing. It must propel readers and convince them to keep going. You might call that entertainment, but I call it the ability to compel. When it comes to subject matter, I wanted to magnify people’s presumptions of each other with an honest, often ugly lens. That said, I didn’t want it to be a harrowing examination of xenophobic, racist, classist tendencies, but also include humor and hijinks. It is a cruise ship after all.

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Matt Gillick is from Northern Virginia. Recent or forthcoming work is in Currant Jam, Hidden Peak Press, and Bruiser Magazine. He serves as the managing editor of Cult. Magazine. Right now, he is working on a novel.

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