A few minutes till closing on a Friday, a kid still in the library, no parent with him, too cold out for him to walk home if he lives any distance away, no coat, only a thin jacket over his shirt.
The Four Steps of Standard Plastination
1. Fixation
When Lily was born, it was decided she would be the last because the family already had too many children. She was named after her
Graham needs to be an interesting character. Graham is a doctor. Graham is a brain surgeon. Graham is a brain surgeon who worries that one day he will be alone in his apartment, nuking leftovers,
It was a long time before slavery went away. The town kept their own slaves well into the Carnegie Administration, trading them and gifting the young to newlyweds. When it was outlawed, seven
How To Play Shit
My brothers Kimi and Mike left with their friend Carmen to steal some watermelon Now & Laters from the deli across the street from the one run by Joe. We didn't steal from
AMY: Hello, Victor. Thank you for agreeing to talk with me again. As with our last interview, I'd like to start with a quote — not from Bruce Campbell this time, but from the epigraph of your
The sun wasn't even fully up yet and there I was, on some stranger's roof, about to begin work for the day, when this girl, maybe four or five years old, tottered down the front steps of the house
All his life the boy threw knives. In his youth he threw knives only in his mind, pretended himself the central attraction of a small but famous circus troupe that traveled the dusty southwest in
Take it from inside you and draw it out. Do it before it decides you are not what you seem to be and, as a result, holds you up by the thumbs. You are picking up that teacup, I see you. You are
In high school, dating Randall "Big Randy" Barton was a rite of passage for the small population of black girls at our exclusive boarding school in rural New Hampshire. His father was a prominent
The drinking life has been rendered in print on so many occasions, it seems unlikely that anyone could find anything new to say about it. It seems unlikely, but then Patrick DeWitt's
Molly Gaudry yanked me back from a depressing precipice. For the past three weeks I've been immersed in the world of Cormac McCarthy, climbing inside his mind via his newly opened archive at Texas
Carol Gipson had acne and was the slightest bit pudgy but she seemed like someone who would turn beautiful with time and I wanted to get in on the ground floor. To spend more time with her, I'd
I put on my suit. It's a business suit. I'm a businessman and I mean business. I mean 'business' with a big 'B' and an ampersand. So from now on, I will say, I'm a Businessman &. Because it
With apologies to Jorge Luis Borges' "Borges and I"
The other one, the one called Melcher, is the fuckup.
I travel a lot for work (sales) and when I'm driving or flying or sitting in an
Lucky
All these people. How did they do it? Well, many did not. Broke as eggs on sidewalks, sister. They were walking around in the street, everywhere, and I was there, watching it unfold. In
Kyle Beachy's debut novel The Slide is the kind of first novel that makes you happy for the presence of books in the world. It's weird and wild and hilarious and touching all at once. This book
I first read J. Robert Lennon in a short-lived lit mag out of Philly called Night Rally. I picked up a copy of the first issue at Borders after a Michael Chabon reading in October 2000, and
penguins
For the penguins it is cold and sometimes it is cold like that in my bedroom, where I sleep, and the covers that cover me up aren't enough to keep me warm. This is summer, but there
Slut Whore has every Barbie on the market, lined up sitting on her windowsill along her bedroom wall, and all the best clothes and accessories. She invites her friends over and they dress and
Near a mound of fresh dirt under a sprawling oak tree. Cannons rumble in the distance. Lounging next to the mound is a young man, about 19. He is dirty. Underneath the dirt and blood streaking his
My friend Brandon has packed his friend's Jeep with provisions of snowballs, dried turkey, Finlandia. Observing the heaped vehicle, and considering the 2,700 miles to California, I am reminded of
Larry Fondation is the author of four books, all of which display his mastery at quilting micro and short fictions to create large bodied tales.
His latest collection, Unintended
Before the blue was sailed by Columbus and his greedy, maritime ilk, before the men who followed him brought plagues, monotheism and gunpowder, there dwelt in the Piedmont a small band of itinerant
Early Morning
Debra Jims dreams of Kool-Aid. The juice leaves a red mustache above her lip. Men around her have mustaches too, real ones, thick and masculine. Her husband Todd rolls over and
"...as soon as a member of the family has breathed his or her last a younger member of the household... is told to visit the hives, and rattling a chain of small keys tap on the hive and whisper
The Piano Thief
It'll take him all of a month, longer if he's in love. But always at least those thirty days. Because a piano is heavy. What he's learned to do over the years, though, is take
Jedediah Berry's first novel The Manual of Detection came out in February from the Penguin Press to uniformly awesome reviews from places like the New York Times Book Review, The Boston Globe, The
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
