The New Yorker: "Oubliette" by David Long

October 10, 2011: "Oubliette" by David Long
Supposedly, this story is part of a series of "flashfictions" about characters drawn from a novel by Long, which, I would imagine,is why this feels less like a stand-alone story and more like a novel excerpt.Except that it's pretty short, it doesn't feel like flash and it also doesn'tfeel much like a short story.
Nathalie is the daughter of Peter Chilcott, a documentaryfilmmaker, and a woman who dies of Huntington's disease when Nathalie is a teenager.But before she's diagnosed, and simply behaving oddly, she locks Nathalie inthe attic (hence the title). This freaks everyone out, of course, leading todivorce, then diagnosis, then treatment and regular visits. Frankly, I didn'tfind it very interesting.
What I found more interesting was the Q&A with DavidLong, in which he says, among other things,

After publishing threeshort-story collections, I was persuaded to write my first novel, "The Falling Boy," and then it was as if theshort-story switch had been toggled off. "Novels are hard," I told people, "butthey're less trouble than a book of stories. Novels are mostly middle; storiesare all beginnings and endings."

He goes on to say that after writing several long projects,he was excited to work with a much shorter form. I can relate.
The story is behind the pay wall, but I really don't thinkyou're missing much.