Larissa Pham

So Traxit is no longer.

And then also I learned that it's the title of a Louise Erdrich book.

I didn't want to steal that from her, although I do owe her writing a great debt.

Yes.

I like that that stood out to you because in that chapter,

The previous chapters all involve works by artists to some degree and in this chapter like it's much more reduced and Christine is kind of she's very paranoid she believes that Richard is following her she's a little destabilized her her event is like about to get cancelled.

at the bookstore because like no one's showing up.

And so she's in this kind of destabilized place.

And there's an artist, Agnes Martin, who lived and worked in Taos, New Mexico for many years, whose work is really oriented around the grid and oriented around these like very geometric square canvases.

And so there's just like a tiny, tiny little bit of Martin at the end.

It's just like a memory that Christine has of seeing of her work.

But I really wanted to draw on this visual repetition, having Christine notice it, allowing that theme of the grid to kind of work its way into the chapter.

Because to me, that chapter is also the moment where Christine breaks the grid, where she ruptures her tour.

She's like, okay, I'm going to

I'm going to shift my travel plans.

I'm going to go somewhere else.

And where she's reflecting a lot on her relationship and its ending and how, again, she kind of ruptures the safety of this grid that she had been living in.

I wish that I had a neater answer than it just came by instinct.

When I was thinking about Christine traveling around, I was like, what could she reasonably encounter?

What could she reasonably see in these different places?