Once, I did a reading in New York where an older lady came up to me afterwards and said, “Your writing is beautiful, and there’s no doubt you’re a great writer, but I’m sorry I won’t be reading any more of that story. That was just too painful for me.” Then, a year or two […]
Fiction
Posted inFiction, Story
Cities I’ve Never Lived In: A Story By Sara Majka
“These stories are a marvel and will break your heart.”
Posted inFiction, Quotes
The Enduring Allure of ‘Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark’
Halloween is mere weeks away—what better time to revisit Alvin Schwartz’s ‘Scary Stories’?
Posted inFiction, Quotes
Honeymooning with Elizabeth Taylor, and Crying All the While: The Fiction of Margot Hentoff
The Harper’s digital archive is a small and unsung national treasure, at least as far as I’m concerned; I’ve spent countless hours sifting through old issues, scanning for early work from familiar names and tracking down forgotten gems from authors whose bylines have largely faded. One such writer is Margot Hentoff, whose short story “Where Do […]
Posted inBooks, Fiction, Quotes
The Dreamy, Sensual, and Bizarre Folk Tales of Yoko Tawada
Yoko Tawada’s English-language publisher, New Directions, describes her slender book The Bridegroom Was a Dog in simple and straightforward terms: “A bizarre tale of passion and romance between a schoolteacher and a dog.” There is, of course, complexity to this tight and colorful novella (written in 1993, and translated from Japanese in 1998), in which the life of […]
Posted inBooks, Fiction, Quotes
A Book in the Mail is the Cure For Ferrante Fever
As a regular book browser, or shelf stalker, and former employee of Community Bookstore in Brooklyn, I’ve recently watched several customers come in asking for recommendations of what to read next after finishing Italian novelist Elena Ferrante’s four-volume saga, The Neapolitan Quartet — a masterwork concerning issues of class, status, and the remarkable complexity of […]
Posted inBooks, Fiction, Quotes
A Case of Mistaken Identity: Percival Everett’s New Collection of Stories
After a night in a motel I returned to the library the next morning and looked at images of Graham Greene. The man in my photograph did look a lot like Graham Greene, but also different. Regardless, I didn’t know where next to look. I decided to try the sheriff’s office. The inside of the […]
Posted inFiction, Quotes
Angela Carter on Myth and Deception in Hollywood
Angela Carter’s short story “The Merchant of Shadows” first appeared in The London Review of Books in 1989. Set in Hollywood, the narrator is a young, male student conducting research on a famed but mysterious director. The story bends and twists, ricocheting between dark comedy, deep camp, and Carter’s signature surreal, Gothic sensibility. Carter was an ardent fan […]
Posted inFiction, Quotes
How Michael Cunningham Writes About the Pains, Pleasures, and Psychedelia of Childhood
Michael Cunningham’s short story “White Angel” (The New Yorker; paywalled) is a vibrant masterpiece in miniature about two young brothers in suburban Cleveland pursuing the promises and pleasures of the sixties. Told through the eyes of 9-year-old Robert, the story travels an elegant curve – from the wonder, joy, and power imbalance of the brothers’ […]
Posted inBooks, Fiction, Quotes
‘Barbados was Bimshire’: Naomi Jackson’s Debut Novel
In Brooklyn, Barbados was bimshire, a jewel that Bajans turned over in their minds, a candy whose sweetness they sucked on whenever the bitter cold and darkness of life in America became too much to bear. Avril, while she reserved a healthy amount of disdain for Bird Hill and its people, still felt something like […]