Amanda Davis: Circling the Drain

Amanda Davis (b. Durham, N.C., ca. 1971; d. in a plane crash out of Asheville, N.C., March 14, 2003) was an up-and-coming writer who died while touring behind her first novel, Wonder When You'll Miss Me (2002). Her earlier short story collection, Circling the Drain (1999), contains fifteen strong stories centering around different yet somewhat similar women protagonists. The novel follows Faith, a young woman escaping from a traumatic and brutalizing experience at school to a traveling circus, where she begins finding her way as an adult.

In real life, Davis graduated from Jordan High School in Durham, a large public institution. In 1999, she actually travelled around the country with a circus crew to absorb the lifestyle.

Thirty-two when she died, Davis was flying with her parents in a Cesna (her father was the pilot); no one survived the crash. Eerily, "Crash," one of the stories in Circling the Drain, begins with these lines: "You are weaving through your life when a plane falls from the sky. You could not have prepared for this
moment. . ."

Davis' writing is vivid and interesting, sometimes akin to Elizabeth McCracken, Mary Gaitskill, Lorrie Moore, early Ann Beattie, Nanci Kincaid, Marly Swick, early David Leavitt, Beverly Donofrio, ZZ Packer, Dan Chaon, early Atonya Nelson, and Amy Hempel, among others. Her career was cut too short to know where she'd go next. From a fellow Tar Heel, may she (and her parents) Rest In Peace.

Today's rune: Self.