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Commentary on “The World Without Me”

Jo-Anne Rosen

This fiction, “The World Without Me,” was inspired by a man I called my mother’s “not-a-boyfriend.” He lived in the senior residence where my mother and I also had apartments. They dated but he would not have been a good choice for a partner, and my mother has no role in this story.

Nor do I, although it was I who discovered his body one afternoon while checking to see if he was alright. I invented a neighbor for that purpose. And a social worker, too. His death and what I learned about him subsequently from his estranged daughter impacted me deeply. It was a challenge to get inside his head.

I have written other stories about the residents of “Harmony Villa” and will likely write more. The themes of aging and estrangement are compelling, as well as senior rabble rousers, senior Casanovas, et al.

The first draft of this story was 2,000 words longer than it is now. It was revised multiple times, trimmed here and deepened there. But my favorite passage in “The World Without Me” is still Bert Dillon’s morphine delirium, pretty much unchanged from the original. I have no idea now what inspired me to write that, but I’d not mind going there again.

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Jo-Anne Rosen’s fiction has appeared in fifty journals and anthologies, including The Florida Review, The Summerset Review, Valparaiso Fiction Review and Big City Lit, and has received a Pushcart nomination. She is a semi-retired, freelance book and web designer living in Petaluma, California, who since 2010 has published Wordrunner eChapbooks, an online hybrid chapbook/journal, and co-edited the Sonoma County Literary Update. What They Don’t Know is her first short story collection. She earned an MA in English Lit from the University of Miami (a very long time ago).

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