The Post-Trauma Plot Book Is Here

“Have any of you ever encountered an obstacle that you later understood to be an opportunity?” the unnamed narrator of Avigayl Sharp’s Offseason, a raucous debut, asks her class. “Trauma can be an opportunity,” says a student, “to enact restorative justice.” Then she gives a second answer: It can also be an opportunity “to take a stand against the revolting and pernicious ‘Trauma Olympics.’” Sharp’s narrator quickly mounts a defense. “I would encourage us all to consider,” she says, “the possibility that some things are worse than other things.” And then, thrusting the conversation into the absurd, she begins writing her personal ranking on the board: “Holocaust > pedophilia > violent rape > Gulag > legal refugee status > ephebophilia > kicking a child in the head > date-rape > mean mom > lack of breastfeeding/babyhood skin contact.” “So which one do you have?” asks the student.