The Great Perhaps (an excerpt)
Joe Meno
Fourteen years old, Thisbe Casper has begun riding her bicycle around Hyde Park looking for God. Before each school day and after, she pedals up and down the street in a gray skirt and blue
Georgia Ambler used to jog on Thursdays while Jake and I shot baskets in the drive. "You're outta shape, old man," Jake laughed, doubled over himself. Locking his hands to his knees, Jake spit
When they told us that the Corn Palace in Mitchell, South Dakota, had been destroyed by a crude but powerful bomb — TERRORIST, they said, TERROR, with the same rote certitude of those who chant
Do you really spend 80% of your free time knitting?
Yes. I've knit during a blackout and a brownout, on the back seat of a double bike, on the beach during the eye of a hurricane, and during a
Fourteen years old, Thisbe Casper has begun riding her bicycle around Hyde Park looking for God. Before each school day and after, she pedals up and down the street in a gray skirt and blue
NOTES ON GRIM TALES
I see the dates on the work go from 1996-2004. Were these written one by one and then later compiled in a certain order? How did the construction process for Grim
Joe Meno is the author of six books, most recently the story collection Demons in the Spring and The Boy Detective Fails. His new novel, The Great Perhaps, is out in May.
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Track #8: "Before They Make Me Run"
We walked home along the railroad tracks. One day I tried to time my stride so each foot would come down on a weathered tie and not the cinder stone. I was
He was temping at a website, one of those online radio stations that you could customize based on music you already liked. It was backed up by evidence, a tab you could click to find out which of
When the weatherman warns the roads will become impassable, your mother sends your father out for supplies. Your mother tucks the money in your mitten. She sends you along to keep him
Frank wanted a "heart of the hide" glove ever since he was in the PeeWees, but the dad of all knowledge said nothing doing, a glove like that had to be earned, game by game, and by earned he didn't
"Becca, you're in charge," Mom said, craning her neck around the driver's side burgundy vinyl headrest. "I'm picking you kids up in three hours at this exact spot, in front of Gate D. Do not, I
There he was in the dugout crying.
All the guys were on the field. They were slugging it out because what were they supposed to do? Clint got beamed in the small and Gary charged from the
September 9, 2007
Add incandescent dedication to six gold gloves
and get a damaged biceps tendon, a bad back and
a "loose body" removed from the bicep joint
in a
It is not for nothing that baseball has existed since 1846 and now encompasses 30 teams playing 162 games each a year. In that span of time, speculative taxonomists and fly-by-night actuaries have
coach wont stop yelling
"watch the signs from the bench coach!"
but i hate bunting
- Brad Epperson
Swing Through
In sheer disbelief
Having swung through the fastball
He
I stop at a 7-Eleven for a pack of gum. I give the cashier a twenty.
"You don't have any ones?" the cashier asks.
I don't, but I say I do anyway.
The cashier just stares at me.
"Um,
So, my step-sister Alice. She divorces her husband of ten years. Bart. High school sweethearts. Sad, sad, sad. Claims he beat her. Wins 75% in court. Unheard of, her lawyer says. But abuse factored
His caps lock button broke and he could only type in capital letters. He spent a notable portion of his money on hos and could not buy a new keyboard. When he emailed his friends they wrote back
1.
so there's this girl, as there always is, except she's a movie star, which figures, since this is me, telling you a story you aren't likely to believe anyhow, and she's not very
Erin McGraw teaches writing at Ohio State, where she works with her husband, the poet Andrew Hudgins. She's the author of The Good Life, Lies of the Saint, and The Baby Tree. In her latest
Paul Maliszewski's Fakers: Hoaxers, Con Artists, Counterfeiters and Other Great Pretenders, was published in January by The New Press. The book is a collection of essays, interviews, and reports
1. Sweet Sixteen:
She is thinking of her father at the breakfast table, reading the paper. Can almost hear him humming softly to himself. Can hear the slow crunch of cereal and the
1. Janie
When I was sixteen, my dad's new wife and her daughter, Mary Ann, moved in, so I had to get out. I found a burned-out one story place on Corey Road near the gas plant. When it wasn't
At some point, the people in their thirties and forties decided to go one of two ways: dog fighting, or dog grooming. It was a simple choice, really, and one for which their childhoods and young