Summary

“Buying a House Ahead of the Apocalypse” (40) is written in the second person in the form of a checklist. Each list item appears to be an instruction from the narrator to herself. She tells herself to check online listings daily, to buy a house before her 40th birthday, which she refers to as “your imminent doom” (40), and to ignore the fact that investing in a house represents a belief that things will get better. She instructs herself to buy a house on a hill outside of Richmond, where her daughter is finishing art school, and to aim for a gated subdivision, even though she was snubbed by a dark-skinned guard there. She tells herself to appeal to a certain Latina woman at the credit union and to wear her hair straight, with a...