Fiction

Let’s begin with death. “Let’s say that in the course of all human experience, death is pure conjecture: it is, as such, not an experience. And all that which is not an experience is useless to mankind.” The speaker here is Ledesma, one of a cadre of lovelorn, thoroughly chauvinistic doctors up to no good at a sanatorium just outside Buenos Aires.

Under a boat are a pod of Orcas, but before they are under a boat they are breaching some distance away from The White Boys in their small rowboat. 

It’s possible that like John the Divine—aka John of Patmos, author of the Book of Revelation—Shiv Kotecha has been plunged into boiling oil and suffered nothing from it, his audience converted into sweet lambs upon witnessing the miracle, and the prophet-poet cast forever unto the brightness of exile.

Dr. Nelson wanted me to feel something. In the palm of his hand was a pale yellow mound of powder. 

What kind of novel would you write if you had never read a novel before? Would it have the mounting tension of a campfire tale? The breathless cadence of fresh gossip shared with a best friend? If you’re Norwegian writer Gunnhild Øyehaug, you unspool 50,000 words with the inventiveness of Scheherazade and the guilelessness of a Red Bull–fueled, hyperarticulate ten-year-old. This is Wait, Blink.

Jimmy, it’s your girl. The one at the desk whom you pay a living wage. This is what could be known as a wake-up call if we were the sort of people who relied upon others to remind us of our tasks.

What literature can (and can’t) tell us about America’s criminal justice system.

The writer discusses growing up in the Borscht Belt, the prevalence of literary humor, and the power of feminist punch lines.

When she told N she was leaving, his response was that doing so would ruin him—financially. 

It was nearly winter, according to the sun and shadows and temperature’s plummet, when the poor girl lost her job at a greenhouse for the misdemeanor of pocketing rare plants. 

“Nothing you will see tonight is normal,” said Elihu’s mother. It was the first exciting thing she’d ever said. 

Fabulism and absurdity from an under-appreciated Italian master.

I meet the artist, who does x, for a snack one afternoon. We have the kind of conversation it was more necessary to have previous to the existence of the Internet. We exchange general info about the world. 

I was the type of man who got his ears cleaned. I was the type of woman who didn’t like dogs. We lived together in a house on a street that was the color of asphalt. I told you what I thought of you.

Passion overwhelms comprehension. Comprehension kills passion.

A posthumous collection cements the author’s reputation as a master of the short story.

When I was thirteen, two missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints came to the house to follow up on a conversation from the week before with my mother. 

Finally back in the fold of Hollywood—one imagines him advancing mistrustfully, mistrustfully looking up at the high and useless palm trees (an immoderation which serves no purpose: the palm trees “planted on both sides of the expressway in order to purge an already pure sky”).

The playwright discusses his formative years, rejuvenation of historical material, and how race is coded into theatergoing itself.

You are on a sidewalk packed and fierce and fueled by desire greed ambition come on come on miracle.