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Top 5 Longreads of the Week: Slate.com, GQ, Tampa Bay Times, The New Republic, Mother Jones, fiction from The Paris Review, plus a guest pick from Sarah Pynoo.
[Fiction, Aura Estrada short story contest winner] A Chinese American woman meets her neighbor under unfortunate circumstances:
‘So where are you from?’ the woman asked me.
‘We just moved up here from the city.’
‘No, I mean originally.’ I knew what this question meant.
‘I was born in China but I’ve lived in New York all my life. I came here before I even turned one.’
‘Oh, China. My sister took a trip to China last year. She said it was very beautiful.’
‘I’ve never been,’ I said. ‘Since I was born, of course.’
‘But your husband, he’s not Chinese.’ Her brow was furrowed as if she was trying to recall a complicated chronology of events. I was tempted to tell her that Daryl was Chinese, just to see if she would believe me.
‘No, he’s not Chinese.’
[Fiction] A mother and daughter arrive in California:
“Our shirts were still sticky and sweet smelling, but the bad, sour side of sweet, when we drove into Los Angeles. My mother had called ahead for reservations at one of the hotels she’d read about, but she said she wouldn’t go there right away.
“‘Huh-uh. Look at us. And look at this car. We’re going to clean up a little first.’
“‘Why? They’re used to it, they’re a hotel, aren’t they?’
“‘Honey, the Bel Air isn’t just a hotel.’ She had the tone she always used when she was too tired to fight. ‘You’ll see.’
“‘Why can’t we wash up there?’
“‘Because. That’s why. You just don’t.'”
Top 5 Longreads of the Week: Slate.com, GQ, Tampa Bay Times, The New Republic, Mother Jones, fiction from The Paris Review, plus a guest pick from Sarah Pynoo.
[Fiction] Excerpt from Woke Up Lonely: Boredom, loneliness and a loss of innocence at a remote listening station in the middle of nowhere:
We got to the cave, the door was unlocked, and inside were a few cryptanalysts I’d seen around, but never talked to. They were gathered at a work station-turned-bar, and playing cards. The three were ecstatic to see us. Hey, Teddy, and, you, what’s your name again? I said I had some reviewing to do and not to mind me at all. Suit yourself, they said. Teddy was dealt in and I retreated to a corner. I sat with my back to the room, put on my headphones, and cued up. Okay, now pay attention. I listened once just to get back into the zone, twice to access my guy’s headspace, and a third to parse content from emotion. By the sixth, I had completely tuned out his whimpers and clamor of self-disgust, but I still could not make sense of the rest. I pressed my headphones into my ears and went: Listen.
Meantime, the others were kissing. I’ll just get right to it, they were kissing. Not that the card game had escalated into strip poker, not that there’d been any pretense to make these amorous gestures compulsory—as per spin the bottle—just that the four had tired of one pursuit and moved on to another.
“Interpreters of Men Get It On.” — Fiona Maazel, Electric Literature
[Fiction] Excerpt from Woke Up Lonely: Boredom, loneliness and a loss of innocence at a remote listening station in the middle of nowhere:
“We got to the cave, the door was unlocked, and inside were a few cryptanalysts I’d seen around, but never talked to. They were gathered at a work station-turned-bar, and playing cards. The three were ecstatic to see us. Hey, Teddy, and, you, what’s your name again? I said I had some reviewing to do and not to mind me at all. Suit yourself, they said. Teddy was dealt in and I retreated to a corner. I sat with my back to the room, put on my headphones, and cued up. Okay, now pay attention. I listened once just to get back into the zone, twice to access my guy’s headspace, and a third to parse content from emotion. By the sixth, I had completely tuned out his whimpers and clamor of self-disgust, but I still could not make sense of the rest. I pressed my headphones into my ears and went: Listen.
“Meantime, the others were kissing. I’ll just get right to it, they were kissing. Not that the card game had escalated into strip poker, not that there’d been any pretense to make these amorous gestures compulsory—as per spin the bottle—just that the four had tired of one pursuit and moved on to another.”
[Fiction] Excerpt from What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank, winner of the 2012 Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award: A father tells his son the truth about a man who beat him during wartime:
Not long into the fighting, an Israeli platoon came to rest at a captured Egyptian camp to the east of Bir Gafgafa, in the Sinai Desert. There Private Shimmy Gezer (formerly Shimon Bibberblat, of Warsaw, Poland) sat down to eat at a makeshift outdoor mess. Four armed commandos sat down with him. He grunted. They grunted. Shimmy dug into his lunch.
A squad mate of Shimmy came over to join them. Professor Tendler (who was then only Private Tendler, not yet a pro- fessor, and not yet even in possession of a high school degree) placed the tin cup that he was carrying on the edge of the table, taking care not to spill his tea. Then he took up his gun and shot each of the commandos in the head.
“What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank.” — Nathan Englander (Excerpt on NPR)
[Fiction] Excerpt from What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank, winner of the 2012 Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award: A father tells his son the truth about a man who beat him during wartime:
“Not long into the fighting, an Israeli platoon came to rest at a captured Egyptian camp to the east of Bir Gafgafa, in the Sinai Desert. There Private Shimmy Gezer (formerly Shimon Bibberblat, of Warsaw, Poland) sat down to eat at a makeshift outdoor mess. Four armed commandos sat down with him. He grunted. They grunted. Shimmy dug into his lunch.
“A squad mate of Shimmy came over to join them. Professor Tendler (who was then only Private Tendler, not yet a pro- fessor, and not yet even in possession of a high school degree) placed the tin cup that he was carrying on the edge of the table, taking care not to spill his tea. Then he took up his gun and shot each of the commandos in the head.”
[Fiction] A run-in with an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer after a rodeo:
Victor saw Nachee and Billy Cosa looking toward the entrance and turned his head to see a Riverside County deputy talking to the manager. Some more law was outside. They’d go around to the kitchen and check on Mexicans without any papers. Victor saw the Riverside deputy look his way. No, he was looking at the white guy at the next table, the guy wearing a straw Stetson he’d fool with, raising the curled brim and setting it close on his eyes again. Never changed his expression. He had size, but looked ten years past herding cows. It was the man’s U.S. Government jacket told Victor he was none of their business.
[Fiction] A young girl encounters an older group of students:
The morning of the abduction, Mrs. Allsop—dishevelled in a limp linen shirtdress—was wielding her secateurs up a ladder, pruning the climbing roses. She was immensely capable; tall and big-boned with a pink, pleasant face and dry yellow hair chopped sensibly short. Jane admired her mother greatly, especially when she transformed herself at night, for a concert in London or a Rotary Club dinner, with clip-on pearl earrings and lipstick and scent, a frilled taupe satin stole. Jane coveted this stole and tried it on when her mother was at the shops, making sultry faces at herself in the mirror—although sultry was the last thing her mother was, and everyone told Jane that she looked just like her. She certainly seemed to have her mother’s figure, with not much bust, no waist to speak of, and a broad flat behind.
‘Why don’t you call up some of your old friends?’ Mrs. Allsop suggested from the ladder top. ‘Invite them round to play Ping-Pong.’
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