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Agni: Happy Accidents
by Jill McCorkle

On the surface, “Happy Accidents” is nothing but an affirmation of the power of positive thinking. It doesn’t look like much, but Jill McCorkle has done much more than that. Her narrator might be trying to justify her life, but we also see a glimpse of human nature. We get to see how people live in structures and patterns, how even the most chaotic and cruel are themselves bound to particular behaviors. It’s that subtly that makes this a thought-provoking short story.

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As the narrator considers her life, she focuses on the men in her life. She talks about the joy of her son, the father who disliked her mother, and the man who betrayed her. Stuart, a boyfriend who left her for a younger woman, is the guy who criticized everything about her. He was someone who made himself look big by making others look small. Our narrator describes him: “All roads lead to his various experiences as a real estate attorney. What you see is what you get. No surprises hiding there after all.” Her father is the same way. And then we have the narrator herself.

Positive thinking aside, she is someone who needs resolutions. She has to see the end result. We see this from the very first sentence: “I have always been big on the end justifying the means, the Karmic shuffle of it all—a path that allows for missteps and interesting discoveries, mistakes and second chances.” Throughout this story, we see a narrator who wants to see the final product, the consequence of her actions and beliefs. It gets even better when we think about her worst fear, stumbling on a crime scene and confessing that she is responsible. She is someone who wants “to tell people how everything is going to be okay, to reassure them that there is light up ahead even when they can only see the darkness.” It’s not a unique character trait, but McCorkle effectively describes it, demonstrating how her narrator would see the world, how she would experience life.

Read it for yourself and let us know what you think.

About the Reviewer
Jeremy Trimble is a graduate student at Sacramento State University in California. He is a writer working on his first novel.

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