City

In "The Stuntman," the first person narrator is living in an unnamed city with her partner. Neither of them are "natives . . . of the city, nor of the country itself, nor of its language" (10). When they first come to the city, they sublet a woman's apartment that becomes "like a boat" to them, granting them a sense of security in the city's otherwise unknown waters (10). Therefore, when the lady tells them that she wants her apartment back and that the couple need to move out, the narrator feels as if she has been "cast into the sea" (10). The city is unfamiliar, and therefore feels threatening. She and her partner are compelled to move from one place to the next over the course of the following weeks, and therefore lose their sense of grounding in this foreign setting. The more places that they are forced to move, the more unstable...