Dark Tourist: Essays

Sirisena explores how stories can become a “talisman against the overwhelming darkness of another’s pain” in her emotionally charged nonfiction debut (after The Other One: Stories). Recounting her family’s struggle to adapt to the American South from their native Sri Lanka, a car accident at age 16 that damaged her eye, a “meaningless” affair with a friend’s husband, and other events, Sirisena probes the role of luck in life: “I feel like so much of my trajectory—career, cultural, sexual,” she writes, “has been the result not of choice or decision but of evasions, near misses, stumbles.” In “Broken Arrow,” she reflects on the 1961 crash of a B-52 carrying two hydrogen bombs near Goldsboro, N.C., and reflects on her father’s life in the same town when she was a child; “In the Presence of God I Make This Vow” considers the 16th-century marriage of a maid of honor to Queen Elizabeth and the son of a wealthy landowner; and “Lady” draws connections between her mother’s illness and Oscar Wilde’s Lady Windemere’s Fan. While the early essays work together well, the second part, where the pieces are largely on the art world, feels a bit less cohesive. Still, Sirisena’s searching spirit leaves readers with plenty to dig into. (Dec.)