Summary

“Up to Half the Apocalypses: Numbed Out From the Past” is the second part of Corin’s final story, “A Hundred Apocalypses.” In keeping with “A Quarter of a Hundred Apocalypses,” the vignettes in “Up to Half the Apocalypses” vary in length, narration style, and content. In contrast to its predecessor, however, the vignettes in “Up to Half the Apocalypses” all somehow examine the theme of memory, nostalgia, and the past.

The first story, “Memory,” is told by a male narrator, who begins by remembering his childhood trip to the San Andreas fault. He goes on to remember a time “not long before that” when he played a witch in The Pied Piper, and missed his line. His mother told him it “was not the end of the world,” and the...