tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-723985102293472202024-03-20T08:10:31.114-07:00Fiction, poetry, and other good stuffLeah Browninghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10253175536656237978noreply@blogger.comBlogger259125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-72398510229347220.post-45491028337282811502024-03-19T09:14:00.000-07:002024-03-19T09:14:33.635-07:00Short stories by Kevin Barry, poetry by Judith Harris, a novel by Colm Tóibín, and essays by David Sedaris<p>~<br /><i>Living alone in his dead uncle's cottage, and with the burden lately of wandering thoughts in the night, Seamus Ferris had fallen hard for a Polish girl who worked at a café down in Carrick. He had himself almost convinced that the situation had the dimensions of a love affair, though in fact he'd exchanged no more than a few dozen words with her, whenever she named the price for his flat white and scone, and he shyly paid it, offering a line or two himself on the busyness of the town or the fineness of the weather.<br /></i>—From "The Coast of Leitrim," the opening story of <i><a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/250963/that-old-country-music-by-kevin-barry/" target="_blank">That Old Country Music</a></i>, a collection of short stories by Kevin Barry (Doubleday, 2020). I first read this story in print in 2019, and I really liked it. Now, though, in 2024, I listened to it as part of the audiobook for <i>That Old Country Music</i>, and this added a whole different dimension. If you have the option, I highly recommend reading the text in addition to listening to it in an audio format read by the author. "<a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/10/15/the-coast-of-leitrim" target="_blank">The Coast of Leitrim</a>" first appeared in print in <i>The New Yorker</i> (October 15, 2018), pp. 70-75, and is available online with the option to read and/or listen to the story. </p><p><i><br />Then a flash of a cardinal<br /></i><i>like a struck match, <br /></i>—From "<a href="https://www.terrain.org/2023/poetry/judith-harris-3/" target="_blank">Cardinal and Pine Through an Open Window</a>," one of two poems by Judith Harris, <i>Terrain.org</i> (September 14, 2023). </p><p><i><br /></i><i>Eilis Lacey, sitting at the window of the upstairs living room in the house on Friary Street, noticed her sister walking briskly from work. She watched Rose crossing the street from sunlight into shade, carrying the new leather handbag that she had bought in Clerys in Dublin in the sale. <br /></i>—From <i><a href="https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Brooklyn/Colm-Toibin/Eilis-Lacey-Series/9781439148952" target="_blank">Brooklyn</a></i>, a novel by Colm Tóibín (Scribner, 2009). The sequel to this book, <i>Long Island</i>, is forthcoming from Scribner on May 7, 2024. </p><p><br /><br />Bonus books to read again: <br /><br /><i>"Oh, for God's sake," my mother said, tossing her wooden spoon into a cauldron of chipped-beef gravy. "Leave that goddamned cat alone before I claw you myself. It's bad enough that you've got her tarted up like some two-dollar whore. Take that costume off her and turn her loose before she runs away just like the last one." <br /></i>—From <i><a href="https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/david-sedaris/naked/9780316777735/" target="_blank">Naked</a></i>, a memoir/collection of essays by David Sedaris (Back Bay Books/Little, Brown and Company, 1997).<br /><br /></p><p><i>My performing career effectively ended the day my drug dealer moved to Georgia to enter a treatment center. Since the museum I'd done a piece at a gallery and had another scheduled for the state university. "How can you do this to me?" I asked her. "You can't move away, not now. Think of all the money I've spent on you. Don't I deserve more than a week's notice? And what do you need with a treatment center? People like you the way you are; what makes you think you need to change? Just cut back a little, and you'll be fine. Please, you can't do this to me. I have a piece to finish, goddamnit. I'm an artist and I need to know where my drugs are coming from."<br /> Nothing I said would change her mind. <br /></i>—From <i><a href="https://www.davidsedarisbooks.com/titles/david-sedaris/me-talk-pretty-one-day/9780316073653/" target="_blank">Me Talk Pretty One Day</a></i>, a memoir/collection of essays by David Sedaris (Little, Brown and Company, 2000). This section is from "Twelve Moments in the Life of an Artist," Eleven, pp. 39-59 in the paperback. A version of this piece first appeared on <a href="https://www.thisamericanlife.org/73/blame-it-on-art/act-two-0" target="_blank"><i>This American Life</i></a> (August 22, 1997) in an episode called "Blame It on Art."</p>Leah Browninghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10253175536656237978noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-72398510229347220.post-12810172086441514692024-01-15T10:24:00.000-08:002024-01-15T10:26:55.859-08:00Short stories by Cleo Qian, and novels by Alina Bronsky, Amy Tan, John Irving, and Anne Tyler<p>~<br /><i>Most evenings, I ordered fried chicken from the same student hot spot near campus and took the food back to my studio, where I streamed Korean TV dramas and celebrity interviews with my VPN or played </i>Hakuoki: Demon of the Fleeting Blossom<i> until two in the morning. These were things I had done as a high schooler, and I was filled with the sickening and yet satisfying feeling of regression into immaturity. </i><br />—From <i><a href="https://tinhouse.com/book/lets-go-lets-go-lets-go/" target="_blank">Let's Go Let's Go Let's Go</a></i>, a collection of short stories by Cleo Qian (Tin House, 2023). This particular segment is from "<a href="https://theadroitjournal.org/issue-forty-five/issue-forty-five-cleo-qian/" target="_blank">Zeros:Ones</a>," which appears on pages 41-54 of the book and which was originally published, possibly in a slightly different form, in <i>The Adroit Journal</i> (Issue 45). This specific passage appeared on page 45 of the paperback. <br /><br /></p><p><i>When Herr Schmidt woke up early Friday and didn't smell coffee, at first he thought Barbara might have died in her sleep. It was an absurd idea—Barbara was as healthy as a horse—though even more absurd was the possibility that she could have overslept. She never overslept. But when he turned over in bed and saw that the other half of the bed was empty, it seemed to him that the most likely explanation was that Barbara had keeled over dead on her way to the kitchen.</i><br />—From <i><a href="https://www.europaeditions.com/book/9781609458430/barbara-isn-t-dying" target="_blank">Barbara Isn't Dying</a></i>, a novel by Alina Bronsky, translated from the German by Tim Mohr (Europa Editions, 2023). This book was originally published in German as <i>Barbara stirbt nicht</i> (Kiepenheuer & Witsch: Germany, 2021). </p><p><br /><i>My sister Kwan believes she has yin eyes. She sees those who have died and now dwell in the World of Yin, ghosts who leave the mists just to visit her kitchen on Balboa Street in San Francisco.</i><br />—From <i><a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/308853/the-hundred-secret-senses-by-amy-tan/" target="_blank">The Hundred Secret Senses</a></i>, a novel by Amy Tan (G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1995). One of my favorite sections of this book had to do with Kwan and the owl (the cat-eagle); it starts on page 191 of the Vintage trade paperback version that I have. </p><p><br /><i>One night he saw one of the mothers standing in the baby room. She did not appear to be looking for her baby in particular; she was just standing in her hospital gown in the middle of the baby room, her eyes closed, absorbing the smells and sounds of the baby room through her other senses. Homer was afraid the woman would wake up Nurse Angela, who was dozing on the duty bed; Nurse Angela would have been cross with her. Slowly, as Homer imagined you might assist a sleepwalker, he led the woman back to the mothers' room. </i><br />—From <i><a href="https://www.harpercollins.com/products/the-cider-house-rules-john-irving?variant=32123692843042" target="_blank">The Cider House Rules</a></i>, a novel by John Irving (William Morrow and Company, 1985). This passage appears on page 86 of the hardcover published in 1985. <b> </b></p><p><br /><br />Bonus book to read again: <br /><br /><i>At the puppet show, in a green and white tent lit by a chilly greenish glow, Cinderella wore a strapless evening gown that made her audience shiver. She was a glove puppet with a large, round head and braids of yellow yarn. At the moment she was dancing with the Prince, who had a Dutch Boy haircut. They held each other so fondly, it was hard to remember they were really just two hands clasping each other. "You have a beautiful palace," she told him. "The floors are like mirrors! I wonder who scrubs them." <br /></i>—From <i><a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/181372/morgans-passing-by-anne-tyler/" target="_blank">Morgan's Passing</a></i>, a novel by Anne Tyler (Alfred A. Knopf, 1980). </p>Leah Browninghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10253175536656237978noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-72398510229347220.post-82788284567971107292023-11-04T09:33:00.003-07:002024-02-17T10:45:48.217-08:00Poetry by Louise Glück, memoirs by Abigail Thomas and Busy Philipps, stories by Amparo Dávila, and a novel by Anne Tyler<p>~<br /><i>It's not easy to pluck individual poems from her books, since Glück was particularly adept at conceiving of book-length sequences—each of her collections is best encountered as a whole, like a Pink Floyd album that doesn't readily yield a hit single.</i><br />—From "<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/13/books/review/five-louise-gluck-poems-to-get-you-started.html" target="_blank">Five Louise Glück Poems to Get You Started</a>," an article by Gregory Cowles, <i>The New York Times</i> (October 13, 2023). Louise Glück died earlier in October at the age of eighty. My favorite of the poems Cowles singled out was "Matins," which begins with these lines: <br /><i><br />I see it is with you as with the birches:<br /></i><i>I am not to speak to you<br /></i><i>in the personal way. <br /><br /></i>The full poem, "<a href="https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1992-09-20-bk-1677-story.html" target="_blank">Matins</a>" (meaning "Mornings" in French), is available online from the archive of the <i>Los Angeles Times</i> (September 20, 1992). It, along with others of the same title, is included in her collection <i><a href="https://www.harpercollins.com/products/the-wild-iris-louise-gluck?variant=32919807492130" target="_blank">The Wild Iris</a></i> (Ecco, 1993). </p><p><i><br />We met in 1979. I was thirty-seven; he was twenty-seven. I had been twice divorced and had four children, Chuck was happily married and had none. I was working at a publishing company as a slush reader, which meant I handled everything that came without an agent. He took over my job because I had been promoted to editorial assistant. . . . It was my job to train him, but all I wanted to do was make him laugh. He was good-looking and nervous, an interesting combination. <br /></i>—From <i><a href="https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/What-Comes-Next-and-How-to-Like-It/Abigail-Thomas/9781476785066" target="_blank">What Comes Next and How to Like It</a></i>, a memoir by Abigail Thomas (Scribner, 2015). This segment is from "When It Started" (pp. 6-7). There is also an excellent unabridged audiobook version, which is narrated by the author (Simon & Schuster Audio Editions, 2015). </p><p><i><br />"Just as the police van pulls up we could see you coming around the corner in your diaper. And there was a woman on a bike behind you." <br /></i>—From <i><a href="https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/This-Will-Only-Hurt-a-Little/Busy-Philipps/9781501184727" target="_blank">This Will Only Hurt a Little</a></i>, a memoir by Busy Philipps (hardcover, Touchstone, 2018; paperback, Gallery Books, 2019). Sometimes a good audiobook is a nice accompaniment to the print book, but in this case, if you have the option, just jump straight to the audiobook. It is narrated by Busy Philipps and is entertaining and sometimes poignant (Simon & Schuster Audio, 2018). My favorite story is in the chapter called "Your Ex Lover Is Dead - Stars." It would probably also be funny on the page, but her delivery is everything here. A sample of the audiobook is available on the website for <a href="https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/This-Will-Only-Hurt-a-Little/Busy-Philipps/9781501184727" target="_blank">Simon & Schuster</a>.<br /><br /></p><p><i>He awoke in a hospital, in a small room where everything was white and spotlessly clean, among oxygen tanks and bags of intravenous fluid, unable to move or speak, no visitors allowed.</i><br />—From <i><a href="https://www.ndbooks.com/book/the-houseguest/" target="_blank">The Houseguest</a></i>, a collection of ominous little stories by Amparo Dávila, translated from the Spanish by Audrey Harris and Matthew Gleeson (New Directions, 2018). This excerpt is from the final story of Dávila's collection, "The Funeral." </p><p><br /><br />Bonus book to read again: <br /><br /><i>My brother Jeremy is a thirty-eight-year-old bachelor who never did leave home. Long ago we gave up expecting very much of him, but still he is the last man in our family and you would think that in time of tragedy he might pull himself together and take over a few of the responsibilities. Well, he didn't. <br /></i>—From <i><a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/181361/celestial-navigation-by-anne-tyler/" target="_blank">Celestial Navigation</a></i>, a novel by Anne Tyler (Alfred A. Knopf, 1974).</p>Leah Browninghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10253175536656237978noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-72398510229347220.post-57592111343628922712023-10-20T13:14:00.001-07:002023-11-04T09:39:00.662-07:00A novel by Paul Murray, a poem by Diane Seuss, short stories by Jess Walter, and memoirs by Stephanie Foo and Frank McCourt<p>~<br /><i>She didn't want to devalue her mother in Elaine's eyes. At the same time, she didn't know how Elaine could think Imelda had mystique. To spend time with her mother was to get a running commentary on the contents of her mind – an incessant barrage of thoughts and sub-thoughts and random observations, each in itself insignificant but cumulatively overwhelming. I must book you in for electrolysis for that little moustache you're getting, she'd say; and then while you were still reeling, Are those tulips or begonias? There's Marie Devlin, do you know she has no sense of style, none whatsoever. Is that man an Arab? This place is filling up with Arabs. Where's this I saw they had that nice chutney? Kay Connor told me Anne Smith's lost weight but the doctor said it was the wrong kind. I thought it was supposed to be sunny today, that's not one bit sunny. Who invented chutney, was it Gorbachev? And on, and on – listening to her was like walking through a blizzard, a storm of frenzied white nothings that left you snow-blind.</i><br />—From <i><a href="https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374600303/thebeesting" target="_blank">The Bee Sting</a></i>, a novel by Paul Murray (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2023). This segment is from page 7 of the hardcover. <br /><br /></p><p><i>I’d just brushed the dog, there on the dog's couch.<br />I was wearing a black—well, to call it a gown is a criminal<br />overstatement—a black rag. </i><br />—From "<a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/08/16/gertrude-stein" target="_blank">Gertrude Stein</a>," a poem by Diane Seuss, <i>The New Yorker</i> (August 16, 2021), p. 52.</p><p><br /><i>Another time, when I went into a bar near my apartment to pick him up, he raised his glass as I approached. "Another one of these," he said. I could see he had no idea who I was. <br /> "Dad? I'm not the bartender. It's Jay. Your son." <br /> He stared at me. He was quiet a moment. Then: "Why don't you ever bring girlfriends home?"<br /> So. This was to be our Sisyphean hell—me coming out to my fading father every day for the rest of his life.</i><br />—From <i><a href="https://www.harpercollins.com/products/the-angel-of-rome-jess-walter?variant=40860618686498" target="_blank">The Angel of Rome</a></i>, a collection of short stories by Jess Walter (HarperCollins, 2022). My favorites were probably "Mr. Voice" (first published in <i>Tin House</i> and then in <i>Best American Short Stories 2015</i>) and the story excerpted above, "Town & Country," which appeared on pages 149-174 in the hardcover (from Scribd Originals, 2020).<br /><br /></p><p><i>My troop leader pulled out her guitar . . . As we sang, all the mothers became misty-eyed, stroking their daughters' hair, kissing the tops of their heads. The other girls leaned into their embraces. My mother did not touch me but stood alone and wept loudly. She cried all the time in the privacy of our home—ugly, bent-in-half sobs—but she never fell apart in public, and the sight alarmed me.</i><br />—From <i><a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/658389/what-my-bones-know-by-stephanie-foo/" target="_blank">What My Bones Know</a></i>, a memoir by Stephanie Foo (Ballantine Books, 2022). There is also an unabridged audiobook, which is narrated by the author (Random House Audio). A short excerpt from the book and a sample of the audiobook are available at the link above.</p><p><br /><br />Bonus book to read again: <br /><i><br />My father and mother should have stayed in New York where they met and married and where I was born. Instead, they returned to Ireland when I was four, my brother, Malachy, three, the twins, Oliver and Eugene, barely one, and my sister, Margaret, dead and gone. </i><br />—From <i><a href="https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Angelas-Ashes/Frank-McCourt/The-Frank-McCourt-Memoirs/9780684842677" target="_blank">Angela's Ashes</a></i>, a memoir by Frank McCourt (Scribner, 1996). If you have the option, I highly recommend listening to the unabridged audiobook, which is narrated by the author. He was an excellent speaker, and the audiobook really captures that. </p>Leah Browninghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10253175536656237978noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-72398510229347220.post-38403626355837794792023-10-12T12:33:00.002-07:002023-10-12T12:37:56.714-07:00The Fall 2023 issue of the Apple Valley Review<p style="text-align: left;">~<br />The Fall 2023 issue of the <i>Apple Valley Review</i> features flash fiction by Jackie Sabbagh and Scott F. Gandert; a short story by J. Malcolm Garcia; a novel excerpt by Philippe Forest (translated from the French by Armine Kotin Mortimer); a memoir excerpt by Dato Turashvili (translated from the Georgian by Mary Childs with Lia Shartava and Elizabeth Scott Tervo); poetry by Mickie Kennedy, Eric Roy, Nadja Küchenmeister (translated from the German by Aimee Chor), Vernon Mukumbi, Marty Krasney, Megan Willburn, Theodora Ziolkowski, and Lynne Knight; and cover artwork by German painter Karl Friedrich Lessing. <br /><br />The <i>Apple Valley Review</i> is a semiannual online literary journal. The current issue, previous issues, subscription information, and complete submission guidelines are available at <a href="https://www.applevalleyreview.com" target="_blank">www.applevalleyreview.com</a>.</p>Leah Browninghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10253175536656237978noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-72398510229347220.post-37745032803308228362023-09-20T11:08:00.000-07:002023-09-20T11:08:28.528-07:00Novels by Jhumpa Lahiri and Francesca Ekwuyasi, short stories by Polly Rosenwaike, and memoir by Abigail Thomas<p>~<br /><i>East of the Tolly Club, after Deshapran Sashmal Road splits in two, there is a small mosque. A turn leads to a quiet enclave. A warren of narrow lanes and modest middle-class homes. </i><br />—From <i><a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/97151/the-lowland-by-jhumpa-lahiri/" target="_blank">The Lowland</a></i>, a novel by Jhumpa Lahiri (Alfred A. Knopf, 2013; paperback Vintage, 2014). </p><p><i><br />She came back down a few hours later to buy gum from the 7-Eleven down the street. As she was heading out the door, Jasmine waved her notebook. "I guess I could share the field notes I wrote about you today."<br /> Leah was suddenly nervous about what this undersized investigator might have to say about her disheveled appearance. But she believed in empirical evidence. "Sure, if you want." <br /> Jasmine read from the notebook. "She is wearing a blue-and-green-striped shirt. I want a shirt like that. She is wearing jeans with a hole in one knee. She is wearing muddy shoes. It's raining so why didn't she wear boots? Maybe she is sick today because she looks white. I mean whiter than normal. I hope she feels better." Jasmine closed the notebook. "I might do a sketch later." <br /></i>—From <i><a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/580454/look-how-happy-im-making-you-by-polly-rosenwaike/" target="_blank">Look How Happy I'm Making You</a></i>, a collection of short stories about pregnancy and new motherhood by Polly Rosenwaike (Doubleday, 2019). This section is from "Field Notes," which appears on pages 16-30 in the hardcover and which was first published as "Laboratory on the Moon" in <i>WomenArts Quarterly Journal</i> (Summer 2013). <br /><br /></p><p><i>Later he built her a special platform so she could knead her bread more comfortably, with no strain on her back. She loved to bake, and he loved her anadama bread. His eyes would close when he put a piece in his mouth and stay closed while he ate. They had a big window installed in the kitchen that looked into the woods. In the fall afternoons she used to watch them empty of their light like a glass of bourbon slowly being filled to the brim. </i><br />—From <i><a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/177755/safekeeping-by-abigail-thomas/" target="_blank">Safekeeping: Some True Stories from a Life</a></i>, a book by Abigail Thomas (hardcover Alfred A. Knopf, 2000; paperback Anchor Books, 2001). This segment is from "Chaos," pages 62-63 in the paperback. (Anne Lamott's blurb referred to this book as "Not so much memoir as a stained-glass window of scenes garnered from a life," which I think is an excellent description of it.) </p><p><br /><i>I live in a cozy house with pretty furniture. Time passes here. There is a fireplace and two acres and the dogs run around and dig big holes and I don't care. . . . Rich is lodged in a single moment and it never tips into the next. Last week I lay on his bed in the nursing home and watched him. I was out of his field of vision and I think he forgot I was there.</i><br />—From <i><a href="https://www.harpercollins.com/products/a-three-dog-life-abigail-thomas" target="_blank">A Three Dog Life</a></i>, a memoir by Abigail Thomas (Harcourt, 2006). This is from the beginning of the opening essay, "What Stays the Same."</p><p><br /><i>By the time Taiye had rubbed oil into her skin and pulled on a longsleeved linen kaftan, the cakes were done, and her mother was awake. Taiye found Kambirinachi sitting on the kitchen counter, with a vacant smile on her face as she stirred milk into a white mug filled with hot cocoa. Coca-Cola was on the floor, batting at her swinging legs.<br /> “Mami, good morning.” Taiye smiled and kissed her mother’s warm forehead. </i><br />—From <i><a href="https://arsenalpulp.com/Books/B/Butter-Honey-Pig-Bread" target="_blank">Butter Honey Pig Bread</a></i>, a debut novel by Francesca Ekwuyasi (Arsenal Pulp Press, 2020). I did not read this book; I listened to an audiobook version narrated by Amaka Umeh (Bespeak Audio Editions, 2021). </p><p></p>Leah Browninghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10253175536656237978noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-72398510229347220.post-83971735638871903592023-09-02T14:40:00.000-07:002023-09-02T14:40:24.014-07:00Short fiction by Tove Ditlevsen and Hiroko Oyamada, and novels by María José Ferrada, Alina Bronsky, and Elisa Shua Dusapin<p>~<br /><i>She closed her eyes and heard Hanne's voice from the kitchen. She was sitting drinking coffee with the children, fresh and in good moods, while the record player from her son's bedroom babbled some vacuous pop melody. All day long there was a cacophony around this difficult young woman, whom Helene was constantly on the brink of firing, though it hadn't amounted to anything yet. </i><br />—From <i><a href="https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374605605/thetroublewithhappiness" target="_blank">The Trouble with Happiness</a></i>, a collection of short stories by Tove Ditlevsen, translated from the Danish by Michael Favala Goldman. This book was originally published in Danish as <i>Paraplyen </i>(<i>The Umbrella</i>)<i> </i>and <i>Den onde lykke </i>(<i>The Trouble with Happiness</i>) (Hasselbalch: Copenhagen, Denmark, 1952 and 1963). The English translation was first published in Great Britain by Penguin Random House (2022) and in the United States by Farrar, Straus and Giroux (2022). The collection is also available as an audiobook, narrated by Stine Wintlev, from Macmillan Audio.</p><p>This segment is from my favorite story in the collection, "The Little Shoes" (pp. 142-152 in the hardcover). It was first published in <i>Meat for Tea: The Valley Review</i>. </p><p>My other favorite, "<a href="https://www.leahbrowning.net/Apple/Fall_2020/Tove_Ditlevsen.html" target="_blank">The Knife</a>," was first published in English in the Fall 2020 issue of the <i>Apple Valley Review</i>. This was the last issue of the journal published in our original format. "The Knife" appears on pages 95-103 of the hardcover version of <i>The Trouble with Happiness</i>. </p><p><br /><i>Ramón climbed up the Coca-Cola billboard near the highway one Monday. That evening, as the sun was disappearing behind the hills that surround the housing complex, he decided he would stay. Even though it was late, the air was still warm. It was a heat that seemed even drier in this patch of the city, which had missed out on its share of pavement and trees because there had not been enough to spare.</i><br />—From <i><a href="https://tinhouse.com/book/how-to-turn-into-a-bird/" target="_blank">How to Turn into a Bird</a></i>, a novel by María José Ferrada, translated from the Spanish by Elizabeth Bryer (Tin House, 2022). This book was previously published as <i>El hombre del cartel </i>(2021).<br /><br /></p><p><i>In Germany, Grandmother took me to the pediatrician. Actually, she explained to me on the way, this was the real reason for our emigration: to finally be able to take me to an upstanding doctor for treatment, one who could give hope to me—and more importantly, to her—that I might survive into adulthood, even if it meant Grandmother would have a millstone around her neck for decades.</i><br />—From <i><a href="https://www.europaeditions.com/book/9781609456467/my-grandmother-s-braid" target="_blank">My Grandmother's Braid</a></i>, a novel by Alina Bronsky, translated from the German by Tim Mohr (Europa Editions, 2021). This book was originally published in German as <i>Der Zopf meiner Großmutter</i> (Kiepenheuer & Witsch: Köln, Germany, 2019). <br /><br /></p><p><i>I arrive at my grandparents' place to find my grandmother seated on the floor in the living room surrounded by her Playmobil figures. She's removed all their hair. They smile vacantly.</i><br />—From <i><a href="https://www.openletterbooks.org/products/the-pachinko-parlor" target="_blank">The Pachinko Parlor</a></i>, a novel by Elisa Shua Dusapin, translated from the French by Aneesa Abbas Higgins (Open Letter, 2022). This book was originally published in French as <i><a href="https://www.editionszoe.ch/livre/les-billes-du-pachinko" target="_blank">Les Billes du Pachinko</a></i> (Éditions Zoé, 2018). First published in the UK by Daunt Books Publishing (2022). </p><p><i><br />When we got to Urabe's place, the old shop sign was still up over the door: WORLD OF WATER—RARE AND EXOTIC FISH. It was too dark to see anything through the window. There was some kind of plastic sheet hanging up on the other side of the glass. Saiki pushed the button on the intercom, then we went around the side and up the stairs to Urabe's apartment. <br /></i>—From <i><a href="https://www.ndbooks.com/book/weasels-in-the-attic/" target="_blank">Weasels in the Attic</a></i>, a short book containing three linked stories by Hiroko Oyamada, translated from the Japanese by David Boyd (New Directions, 2022). This segment is from the first story, "Death in the Family," on p. 5 of the paperback. The stories in <i>Weasels in the Attic</i> were originally published by Shinchosa Publishing Co., Tokyo, in 2012, 2013, and 2014. </p>Leah Browninghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10253175536656237978noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-72398510229347220.post-88871615753931483262023-08-12T12:46:00.003-07:002023-10-16T10:02:45.113-07:00An essay by Devon Geyelin, novels by Yūko Tsushima and Amy Tan, a memoir by Amy Bloom, and a poem by Jane Hirshfield <p>~<br /><i>I first wrote this while I sat in bed in the months after, once he wasn't there anymore and I was upset. Initially it was very long, maybe a hundred pages, or more than that. It had a part where we were friends, and a part where we dated, and a part where we stopped, and then the attack. </i><br />—From "<a href="https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2023/07/25/friendship/" target="_blank">Friendship</a>," an essay by Devon Geyelin, <i>The Paris Review</i> (online July 25, 2023). </p><p><br /><i>The apartment had windows on all sides.<br /> I spent a year there, with my little daughter, on the top floor of an old four-storey office building. We had the whole fourth floor to ourselves, plus the rooftop terrace. At street level there was a camera shop; the second and third floors were both divided into two rented offices.</i><br />—From <i><a href="https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250251053/territory-of-light" target="_blank">Territory of Light</a></i>, a short, atmospheric novel by Yuko Tsushima, translated from the Japanese by Geraldine Harcourt (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2019). (Note: If you are looking for this book or others by the same author, her name in English is alternately stylized as Yuko Tsushima and Yūko Tsushima.) The English translation was previously published in Great Britain (Penguin Books Ltd., 2018), and this quote is from a paperback edition published in Great Britain in 2019. An unabridged audiobook version of the English translation, narrated by Rina Takasaki, is also available (Macmillan Audio, 2019). <br /><br /><i>Territory of Light</i> was originally published in twelve parts in the Japanese literary monthly <i>Gunz</i><i>ō</i> (July 1978-June 1979). The story takes place over the course of a year, and the release of the twelve chapters marked the months in real time. It was then published in book form in Japan as <i>Hikari no Ryōbun</i> (Kodansha Ltd., 1979). </p><p><br /><i>Helen thinks all her decisions are always right, but really, she is only lucky. For over fifty years I have seen this happen, how her foolish thinking turns into good fortune. It was like that at lunch yesterday. "Winnie-ah," she said. "Have more chicken." I told Helen I did not want to eat any more funeral leftovers—five days was enough. So we went shopping at Happy Super, deciding what new things to eat for last night's dinner.<br /> Helen picked out a flat fish, pom-pom fish, she called it, only a dollar sixty-nine a pound, bargain bin. <br /> And I said, "This kind of bargain you don't want. Look at his eye, shrunken in and cloudy-looking. That fish is already three days old."<br /> But Helen stared at that fish eye and said she saw nothing wrong. So I picked up that fish and felt its body slide between my fingers, a fish that had slipped away from life long time ago. Helen said it was a good sign—a juicy, tender fish! <br /> . . .<br /> She bought that three-day-old fish, the dinner I ate at her house last night. . . . <br /> I tell you, that fish made me so mad. It was sweet. It was tender. Only one dollar sixty-nine a pound. I started to think, Maybe Helen went back to Happy Super and exchanged that fish. But then I thought, Helen is not that clever. And that's when I remembered something. Even though Helen is not smart, even though she was born poor, even though she has never been pretty, she has always had luck pour onto her plate, even spill from the mouth of a three-day-old fish. </i><br />—From <i><a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/300525/the-kitchen-gods-wife-by-amy-tan/" target="_blank">The Kitchen God's Wife</a></i>, a novel by Amy Tan (G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1991). The section above is from the beginning of chapter 3, pages 67-68 of the mass market paperback (Ivy Books/Ballantine Books/Random House, 1992). The novel was reissued by Penguin in 2006.</p><p><br /><i>When we moved to a small Connecticut village in 2014, Brian was invited to join a men's book club. He was dubious because they seemed to prefer nonfiction and he did not, but he was pleased to be asked and he went regularly. He suggested a novel whenever it was his turn to suggest. They asked him why he wanted to be in their book club and he said, I love a good read and I love intimacy. He was pleased that they looked shocked, and he felt that he'd announced himself properly. </i><br />—From <i><a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/677454/in-love-by-amy-bloom/" target="_blank">In Love: A Memoir of Love and Loss</a></i> by Amy Bloom (Random House, 2022). This segment appears on page 15 of the hardcover. The audiobook version, available from Random House Audio, features Amy Bloom reading the book herself. <br /><br /></p><p>In Amy Bloom's memoir, she quotes the last line from "<a href="https://poets.org/poem/each-moment-white-bull-steps-shining-world" target="_blank">Each Moment a White Bull Steps Shining into the World</a>," a poem by Jane Hirshfield, which begins with this: <br /><i><br />If the gods bring to you <br /></i><i>a strange and frightening creature, <br /></i><i>accept the gift <br /></i><i>as if it were one you had chosen.</i></p>Leah Browninghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10253175536656237978noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-72398510229347220.post-47061732243924702622023-07-19T15:17:00.001-07:002023-07-19T15:27:45.897-07:00Poetry by Aliyah Cotton and Roxanne Cardona, and short fiction by Haruki Murakami, Lucas Flatt, and Christopher Ghattas <p>~<br /><i>For example, I puffed on my inhaler<br />and watched the unnamed smoke creep<br />under my bedroom door as the music and <br />the loud voices boomed down the hall.<br />I knew never to call 911.</i><br />—From "<a href="https://rustandmoth.com/work/evidence-for-the-necessity-of-my-removal-by-child-protective-services/" target="_blank">evidence for the necessity of my removal by child protective services</a>," a poem by Aliyah Cotton, <i>Rust & Moth</i> (Spring 2023). </p><p><br /><i>That Sunday, I went to my girlfriend's house to pick her up. We went on dates pretending we were going to the library to study, so I always put various study-related items in my shoulder bag to keep up the facade. Like a novice criminal making up a flimsy alibi. <br /> I rang the bell over and over, but no one answered. I paused for a while, then rang it again, repeatedly, until I finally heard someone moving slowly toward the door. It was my girlfriend's older brother. </i><br />—From "With the Beatles," a short story from <i>First Person Singular</i>, a collection of eight stories by Haruki Murakami, translated from the Japanese by Philip Gabriel (Alfred A. Knopf, 2021). The book was originally published in Tokyo, Japan, as <i>Ichininsho Tansu</i> (Bungei Shunju Ltd., 2020). A slightly different version of "<a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/02/17/with-the-beatles" target="_blank">With the Beatles</a>" was published, with an illustration by Adrian Tomine, in <i>The New Yorker</i> (February 17 and 24, 2020). The excerpt above is from the hardcover book (p. 93). </p><p><br /><i>Of course, with the students, they’re mostly not dumb enough to think they’ll have writing careers, or else they've self-published fifteen sci-fi novels since they graduated high school two months ago. (That guy doesn't seem the least bit anxious; he's got deadlines to meet.) Once upon a time, I smoked pot and if I wanted to describe a flowering pocomoke crepe myrtle shimmering fuchsia in a dry ditch, I did it without looking up "flowering bushes" and wondering where all the time went.</i><br />—From "<a href="https://maudlinhouse.net/reflections-after-googling-how-to-be-less-anxious-about-my-writing-career-and-finding-the-same-bullshit-i-tell-my-composition-students/" target="_blank">Reflections After Googling 'How to Be Less Anxious About My Writing Career' and Finding the Same Bullshit I Tell My Composition Students</a>," fiction by Lucas Flatt, <i>Maudlin House</i> (June 22, 2023). <br /><br /></p><p><i>My father says my problems are not problems. <br /> </i>What do you know?<i> I think.</i><br /><i> "What do you mean?" I say.</i><br /><i> He turns to me. He grumbles about his car engine and his dead wife and something called a praws tate.</i><br /><i> "My dead mother, you mean."</i><br />—From "<a href="https://www.streetlit.xyz/fiction/plums" target="_blank">Plums</a>," a piece of flash fiction by Christopher Ghattas, <i>StreetLit</i> (April 21, 2023). </p><p><br /><i>I am early. Take out my keys. Three women at the end of their evening's <br />work, in a tangle of sprawl, languish on the hood of a nearby car. </i><br />—From "<a href="https://www.sareview.org/pub/0ctk2chc/release/1" target="_blank">Welcome to Summer School</a>," a poem by Roxanne Cardona, <i>San Antonio Review</i> (June 21, 2023). </p>Leah Browninghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10253175536656237978noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-72398510229347220.post-22588697153018793202023-06-26T11:05:00.002-07:002023-11-04T09:39:38.506-07:00Short stories and flash fiction by Parker Young, novels by Barbara Kingsolver and Gabriel García Márquez, and a bonus book to read again<p>~<br /><i>I decided to throw the chicken sandwich away but couldn't bring myself to touch it, the first step in the throwing-away process proved impossible, so I sat there while it sat there too, me in my chair, the sandwich on my plate, both of us in the kitchen listening to my wife talk or cry softly in the bedroom, where I pretended to sleep every night but couldn’t for no reason, no reason at all.</i><br />—From "<a href="https://www.alwayscrashing.com/current/2022/5/10/parker-young-chicken-marriage-sandwich" target="_blank">Chicken Marriage Sandwich</a>," a story by Parker Young, <i>Always Crashing Magazine</i> (May 22, 2022). </p><p><br /><i>In Bora Bora, crabs do the work of rodents at night, patrolling the gutters with a percussive, mechanical menace. Dogs sleep inches from the road; it looks like they've been struck down by careless drivers. I almost hit some of them myself in our rented Fiat Panda because I was attempting to learn, under [my brother-in-law] Harrison's tutelage, how to operate a manual transmission. I made the Panda lurch erratically around the road that circumvolves the island, like a model train powered by a sketchy generator, which was pretty close to the real situation mechanically, as Harrison kept trying to explain to me by repeating the story of the clutch and the drivetrain, the clutch and the drivetrain, a meaningless story, impossible to visualize, which I never even began to understand. While everyone else on the island only appeared to be driving recklessly (it was ultimately a sign of their mastery), I was actually doing it, because I had too much to think about all at once—the clutch, the gas, my error in taking this one-week job as Harrison's assistant—and it was embarrassing. </i><br />—From "Disappearances," a story by Parker Young, from his debut collection of short fiction, <i><a href="https://futuretensebooks.com/product/parker-young/" target="_blank">Cheap Therapist Says You're Insane</a></i> (Future Tense Books, 2023). I originally discovered this book via a list of new fiction, which led me to read "Chicken Marriage Sandwich," which was published in <i>Always Crashing</i> (see above). I liked the story so much that I ordered a copy of <i>Cheap Therapist Says You're Insane</i>. (Interestingly, the version of "Chicken Marriage Sandwich" that appears in the book is quite different. I definitely recommend reading the version in <i>Always Crashing</i>, even if you do read, or have already read, the collection.) This story, "Disappearances," is on pages 93-101 of the book. This particular segment appears on pages 94-95. I was making a list of my other favorite stories from the collection, but it ended up being too long. (I will single out "Repentance Rebate" and "Two Bathtubs in Memphis.") </p><p><i><br />First, I got myself born. A decent crowd was on hand to watch, and they've always given me that much: the worst of the job was up to me, my mother being let's just say out of it.<br /></i><i> On any other day they'd have seen her outside on the deck of her trailer home, good neighbors taking notice, pestering the tit of trouble as they will. All through the dog-breath air of late summer and fall, cast an eye up the mountain and there she'd be, little bleach-blonde smoking her Pall Malls, hanging on that railing like she's captain of her ship up there and now might be the hour it's going down. This is an eighteen-year-old girl we're discussing, all on her own and as pregnant as it gets. The day she failed to show, it fell to Nance Peggot to go bang on the door, barge inside, and find her passed out on the bathroom floor with her junk all over the place and me already coming out. A slick fish-colored hostage picking up grit from the vinyl tile, worming and shoving around because I'm still inside the sack that babies float in, pre-real-life.<br /></i><i> Mr. Peggot was outside idling his truck, headed for evening service, probably thinking about how much of his life he'd spent waiting on women. His wife would have told him the Jesusing could hold on a minute, first she needed to go see if the little pregnant gal had got herself liquored up again. Mrs. Peggot being a lady that doesn't beat around the bushes and if need be, will tell Christ Jesus to sit tight and keep his pretty hair on. She came back out yelling for him to call 911 because a poor child is in the bathroom trying to punch himself out of a bag.<br /></i>—From <i><a href="https://www.harpercollins.com/products/demon-copperhead-barbara-kingsolver?variant=40073146204194" target="_blank">Demon Copperhead</a></i>, a novel by Barbara Kingsolver (Harper, 2022), winner of the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. </p><p><br /><i>It was inevitable: the scent of bitter almonds always reminded him of the fate of unrequited love. Dr. Juvenal Urbino noticed it as soon as he entered the still darkened house where he had hurried on an urgent call to attend a case that for him had lost all urgency many years before. The Antillean refugee Jeremiah de Saint-Amour, disabled war veteran, photographer of children, and his most sympathetic opponent in chess, had escaped the torments of memory with the aromatic fumes of gold cyanide.<br /></i> <i>He found the corpse covered with a blanket on the campaign cot where he had always slept, and beside it was a stool with the developing tray he had used to vaporize the poison. On the floor, tied to a leg of the cot, lay the body of a black Great Dane with a snow-white chest, and next to him were the crutches. </i><br />—From <i><a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/57995/love-in-the-time-of-cholera-by-gabriel-garcia-marquez/" target="_blank">Love in the Time of Cholera</a></i>, a novel by Gabriel García Márquez, translated from the Spanish by Edith Grossman (Alfred A. Knopf, 1988). The book was originally published in Colombia as <i>El amor en los tiempos del cólera</i> in 1985. <br /><br /><br /></p><p>Bonus book to read again: <br /><br /><i>That was the spring that Ian's brother fell in love. Up till then Danny had had his share of girlfriends—various decorative Peggies or Debbies to hang upon his arm—but somehow nothing had come of them. He was always getting dumped, it seemed, or sadly disillusioned. His mother had started fretting that he'd passed the point of no return and would wind up a seedy bachelor type. Now here was Lucy, slender and pretty and dressed in red, standing in the Bedloes' front hall with her back so straight, her purse held so firmly in both hands, that she seemed even smaller than she was. She seemed childlike, in fact, although Danny described her as a "woman" when he introduced her. "Mom, Dad, Ian, I'd like you to meet the woman who's changed my life." </i><br />—From <i><a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/181377/saint-maybe-by-anne-tyler/" target="_blank">Saint Maybe</a></i>, a novel by Anne Tyler (Alfred A. Knopf, 1991/Vintage reprint, 1996). </p>Leah Browninghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10253175536656237978noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-72398510229347220.post-71768251172973606962023-04-30T15:14:00.001-07:002023-06-15T10:52:18.365-07:00Novels by Claire Keegan and Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀, short stories by Souvankham Thammavongsa and Yoon Choi, and a bonus book to read again<p>~<br /><i>During busy times like these, Furlong made most of the deliveries himself, leaving the yardmen to bag up the next orders and cut and split the loads of felled trees the farmers brought in. Through the mornings, the saws and shovels could be heard going hard at it, but when the Angelus bell rang, at noon, the men laid down their tools, washed the black off their hands, and went round to Kehoe's, where they were fed hot dinners with soup, and fish & chips on Fridays.<br /> 'The empty sack cannot stand,' Mrs Kehoe liked to say, standing behind her new buffet counter, slicing up the meat and dishing out the veg and mash with her long, metal spoons. <br /> Gladly, the men sat down to thaw out and eat their fill before having a smoke and facing back out into the cold again. </i><br />—From <a href="https://groveatlantic.com/book/small-things-like-these/" style="font-style: italic;" target="_blank">Small Things Like These</a>, a short novel by Claire Keegan (Grove Press, 2021). It was first published in the United Kingdom in 2021 by Faber & Faber Limited.</p><p><br /><i>I must leave this city today and come to you. My bags are packed and the empty rooms remind me that I should have left a week ago. Musa, my driver, has slept at the security guard’s post every night since last Friday, waiting for me to wake him up at dawn so we can set out on time. But my bags still sit in the living room, gathering dust. <br /> I have given most of what I acquired here—furniture, electronic devices, even house fittings—to the stylists who worked in my salon. So, every night for a week now, I’ve tossed about on this bed without a television to shorten my insomniac hours. <br /> There’s a house waiting for me in Ife, right outside the university where you and I first met. I imagine it now, a house not unlike this one, its many rooms designed to nurture a big family: man, wife and many children. I was supposed to leave a day after my hairdryers were taken down. The plan was to spend a week setting up my new salon and furnishing the house. I wanted my new life in place before seeing you again. </i><br />—From <i><a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/547389/stay-with-me-by-ayobami-adebayo/" target="_blank">Stay with Me</a></i>, a novel by Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀ (Vintage, 2018). The book was originally published in hardcover in Great Britain (Canongate Books Ltd., Edinburgh) and then in the United States (Alfred A. Knopf) in 2017. </p><p><br /><i>My mother learned to speak English watching these [soap operas], and soon she started practising what she learned. When my father didn't feel like eating, she would ask who he had been eating his meals with that he had no appetite? When a sock went missing from the dryer, she would ask where it went, and when he had no answer, she would accuse him of having an affair. </i><br />—From <i><a href="https://www.littlebrown.com/titles/souvankham-thammavongsa/how-to-pronounce-knife/9780316422116/" target="_blank">How to Pronounce Knife</a></i>, a short story collection by Souvankham Thammavongsa (Little, Brown and Company, 2020). This book won the 2020 Scotiabank Giller Prize and 2021 Trillium Book Award, and it was a finalist for the 2021 National Book Critics Circle Award and the PEN America Open Book Award. The segment above is from the story "Edge of the World," which appears on pages 93-105 of the hardcover from Little, Brown in the United States. The collection is also available from <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/602649/how-to-pronounce-knife-by-souvankham-thammavongsa/9780771094606" target="_blank">McClelland & Stewart</a> in Canada and <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/how-to-pronounce-knife-9781526610461/" target="_blank">Bloomsbury</a> in the United Kingdom.<i><br /></i></p><p><i><br />Once, before [the cancer] got so bad, she took her handbag and left. No one knew where she went. But later they found out that she had taken the 7 line to Main Street, Flushing. Even though I have never met James mother, I can picture her on that day, buying a sponge cake in the gift box and holding it by the ears. She paid the visit to Elder Huang, the optometrist, who is the matchmaker. Afterward, Mr. Huang contacted so-and-so, and so-and-so, until one day in September, Big Mother—which is my father's older brother's wife—came to our Front Gate and cried out: I'm here!</i></p><p><i> Inside the house, we all ran around. My mother slapped every cushion on the guest sofa. She said, "Leave it, leave it," to our Miss, who was trying to pull off the dry flowers from the butterfly orchid on the glass table. She put Miss in the Back Room with Min-soo so that he would not be under Big Mother's eye-measure. She pushed me to the kitchen. Finally she opened the door as Big Mother came up the steps from the courtyard. </i><br />—From "First Language," a short story by Yoon Choi, from her collection <i><a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/656308/skinship-by-yoon-choi/" target="_blank">Skinship</a></i> (Knopf, 2021). This story appears on pages 44-79 of the Vintage Books trade paperback edition, 2022. This specific segment appears on page 46. </p><p><br /><br />Bonus book to read again: <br /><br /><i>When I was a young girl in China, my grandmother told me my mother was a ghost. This did not mean my mother was dead. In those days, a ghost was anything we were forbidden to talk about. So I knew Popo wanted me to forget my mother on purpose, and this is how I came to remember nothing of her. The life that I knew began in the large house in Ningpo with the cold hallways and tall stairs. This was my uncle and auntie's family house, where I lived with Popo and my little brother.</i> <br />—From <i><a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/300526/the-joy-luck-club-by-amy-tan/" target="_blank">The Joy Luck Club</a></i>, a novel by Amy Tan (G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1989/Penguin Books, 2016). The section above is from "Scar," which is on pages 33-41 of the Penguin paperback reissued with a preface by Amy Tan in 2019 for the thirtieth anniversary of the book's publication. </p>Leah Browninghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10253175536656237978noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-72398510229347220.post-14889945766585110322023-04-12T09:20:00.002-07:002023-10-12T12:39:15.933-07:00The Spring 2023 issue of the Apple Valley Review<p><span style="font-family: inherit;">~<br />The Spring 2023 issue of the <i>Apple Valley Review</i> features short fiction by Marianna Vitale (translated
from the Italian by Laura Venita Green), Nico Montoya, Anita Harag (translated
from the Hungarian by Marietta Morry and Walter Burgess), Sohana Manzoor, and
Kristian Radford; a lyric essay by Amy Ash; poetry in prose by Yves Bonnefoy
(translated from the French by Hoyt Rogers); poetry by Ashish Kumar Singh,
Susan Johnson, Laura Goldin, George HS Singer, and Liza Moore; and a cover
image by Tunisian photographer Houcine Ncib. <br /><br />The <i>Apple Valley Review</i> is a semiannual online literary journal. The current issue, previous issues, subscription information, and complete submission guidelines are available at <a href="https://www.applevalleyreview.com" target="_blank">www.applevalleyreview.com</a>. </span></p>Leah Browninghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10253175536656237978noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-72398510229347220.post-5078859231640224962023-03-22T11:01:00.006-07:002023-03-22T11:21:11.389-07:00The Copenhagen Trilogy by Tove Ditlevsen <p> ~<br /><i>The dark hallway smelled of fear, so I was afraid that Mrs Olfertsen would notice it, as if I'd brought the smell with me. My body and my movements became stiff and awkward as I stood listening to her fluttering voice explaining many things and, in between the explanations, running on like an empty spool that babbled about nothing in an uninterrupted stream – about the weather, about the boy, about how tall I was for my age. She asked whether I had an apron with me, and I took my mother's out of the emptied school bag. There was a hole near the seam because there was something or other wrong with everything that my mother was responsible for, and I was touched by the sight of it. My mother was far away and I wouldn't see her for eight hours. I was among strangers – I was someone whose physical strength they'd bought for a certain number of hours each day for a certain payment. They didn't care about the rest of me. When we went out to the kitchen, Toni, the little boy, came running up in his pajamas. 'Good morning, Mummy,' he said sweetly, leaning against his mother's legs and giving me a hostile look. The woman gently pulled herself free from him and said, 'This is Tove, say hello to the nice lady.' Reluctantly he put out his hand and when I took it, he said threateningly, 'You have to do everything I say or else I'll shoot you.' His mother laughed loudly and showed me a tray with cups and a teapot, and asked me to fix the tea and come into the living room with it. </i><br />—From <i>Youth</i>, chapter 1, by Tove Ditlevsen, translated from the Danish by Tiina Nunnally. This segment is on pages 103-104 of the American hardcover version of <i>The Copenhagen Trilogy</i>. <br /><i><br /><a href="https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250829788/the-copenhagen-trilogy" target="_blank">The Copenhagen Trilogy</a></i> is a compilation of three shorter books by Tove Ditlevsen, translated from the Danish by Tiina Nunnally and Michael Favala Goldman (Penguin Random House in Great Britain, 2020, and Farrar, Straus and Giroux in the United States, 2021). <i>Childhood</i> and <i>Youth</i> were first published in Copenhagen, Denmark, as <i>Barndom</i> and <i>Ungdom</i> (Gyldendal, 1967). <i>Dependency</i> was first published in Copenhagen as <i>Gift</i> (Gyldendal, 1971).<br /><br />The <i>New York Times</i> included <i>The Copenhagen Trilogy</i> on its list of the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/30/books/review/best-books-2021.html">ten best books of 2021</a>, writing that "Ditlevsen's gorgeous memoirs, first published in Denmark in the 1960s and '70s and collected here in a single volume, detail her hardscrabble upbringing, career path and merciless addictions: a powerful account of the struggle to reconcile art and life. She joined the working ranks at 14, became a renowned poet by her early 20s, and found herself, after two failed marriages, wedded to a psychopathic doctor and hopelessly dependent on opioids by her 30s. Yet for all the dramatic twists of her life, these books together project a stunning clarity, humor and candidness, casting light not just on the world's harsh realities but on the inexplicable impulses of our secret selves." A full <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/26/books/review/tove-ditlevsen-copenhagen-trilogy.html">review of the book</a>, by Megan O'Grady, appeared in the <i>New York Times</i> on January 26, 2021.<br /><br />"<a href="https://www.leahbrowning.net/Apple/Fall_2018/Tove_Ditlevsen.html" target="_blank">Before Rehab</a>," an astonishing excerpt from <i>Dependency</i>, written by Tove Ditlevsen and translated from the Danish by Michael Favala Goldman (credited as Michael Goldman), appeared in the Fall 2018 issue of the <i>Apple Valley Review</i>. This excerpt, Chapter 5 of <i>Dependency</i>, is on pages 341-348 of the hardcover edition of <i>The Copenhagen Trilogy</i> (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2021). <br /><br />In an essay in <i>The New Yorker</i>, Hilton Als wrote that "<i>Dependency</i> strikes me as an inspired title for this volume, which is called <i>Gift</i> in Danish—a word that can mean 'marriage' or 'poison.' Ditlevsen has a dependency not only on Demerol but on the question of what it means to be a wife while also a lovesick daughter and an artist." The essay, "<a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/02/15/tove-ditlevsens-art-of-estrangement" target="_blank">Tove Ditlevsen's Art of Estrangement</a>," appeared in the Books section of <i>The New Yorker</i> in the issue for February 15 & 22, 2021. <br /><br />Als also said, "Don’t think yourself odd if, after reading the Danish writer Tove Ditlevsen's romantic, spiritually macabre, and ultimately devastating collection of memoirs . . . you spend hours, if not days, in a reverie of alienation." No comment about that. <br /><br />In my opinion, <i>The Copenhagen Trilogy</i> is even more phenomenal when paired with the unabridged audiobook from Macmillan Audio. I recently read the book again, in addition to listening to the audiobook, and the narration by Stine Wintlev brings the book to life in a new way. The audiobook is available directly from <a href="https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250797360/thecopenhagentrilogy">Macmillan Audio</a> as well as from OverDrive, Audible, Spotify, SoundCloud, and elsewhere.</p> <br /><br /><b>THE COPENHAGEN TRILOGY</b><br /><br />Childhood, Youth, Dependency<br /><br />By Tove Ditlevsen<br /><br />Translated by Tiina Nunnally and Michael Favala Goldman<br /><br />Farrar, Straus and Giroux<br /><br />Available online from <a href="https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374602390/thecopenhagentrilogy" target="_blank">Macmillan</a> in hardcover, trade paperback, e-book, and digital audio <br /><br />Leah Browninghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10253175536656237978noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-72398510229347220.post-4431368002817489372023-02-17T15:46:00.000-08:002023-02-17T15:46:50.050-08:00Fiction by Graham Greene, Miriam Cohen, T. Coraghessan Boyle, and Jonas Eika, and a collection of cityscapes by Paul Madonna<p>~<br /><i>Scobie took a Mende grammar from the bookcase: it was tucked away in the bottom shelf where its old untidy cover was least conspicuous. In the upper shelves were the flimsy rows of Louise's authors—not-quite-so-young modern poets and the novels of Virginia Woolf. He couldn't concentrate: it was too hot and his wife's absence was like a garrulous companion in the room reminding him of his responsibility. A fork fell on the floor and he watched Ali surreptitiously wipe it on his sleeve, watched him with affection: they had been together fifteen years—a year longer than his marriage—a long time to keep a servant. He had been "small boy" first, then assistant steward in the days when one kept four servants, now he was plain steward. After each leave Ali would be on the landing-stage waiting to organize his luggage with three or four ragged carriers. In the intervals of leave many people tried to steal Ali's services, but he had never yet failed to be waiting—except once when he had been in prison. There was no disgrace about prison; it was an obstacle that no one could avoid for ever.<br /></i>—From <i><a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/354746/the-heart-of-the-matter-by-graham-greene/" target="_blank">The Heart of the Matter</a></i>, a novel by Graham Greene (William Heinemann in London/The Viking Press in the United States, 1948). I was listening to an unabridged audiobook version narrated by Joseph Porter (Blackstone Publishing, 2011). Please note: this book contains some racist language that will be considered offensive now. <i>The Heart of the Matter </i>is set in Sierra Leone during World War II and was first published in 1948. </p><p><br /><i>Yael's parents ask if she has any questions, and she does, but she suspects they aren't the right ones. She wants to know if she will have two toothbrushes now, or if she will bring the same one back and forth, its bristles wrapped in shredding tissue to keep from getting germy. Also, she is curious about when a divorce starts: if it happens all at once, or in stages, the way people are engaged for a while before they are married. She wants to ask if later on that night they will have dinner together, or if the divorce has made that, today, impossible.</i><br />—From "Bad Words," a short story by Miriam Cohen, from her collection <i><a href="https://www.igpub.com/adults-and-other-children/" target="_blank">Adults and Other Children</a></i> (Ig Publishing, 2020). This story appears on pages 31-45. </p><p><i><br />Clover was back in the room, the baby flung over one shoulder. She was wearing an old Cramps T-shirt she liked to sleep in and nothing else. I might have found this sexy to one degree or another but for the fact that I wasn't at my best in the morning and I'd seen her naked save for one rock-and-roll memento T-shirt for something like a thousand consecutive mornings now. "It's six-fifteen," she said. I said nothing. My eyes eased shut. I heard her at the closet, and in the dream that crashed down on me in that instant she metamorphosed from a rippling human female with a baby slung over her shoulder to a great shining bird springing from the brink of a precipice and sailing on great shining wings into the void. I woke to the baby. On the bed. Beside me. "You change her," my wife said. "You feed her. I'm late as it is."</i><br />—From "<a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2008/04/14/the-lie-3" target="_blank">The Lie</a>," a short story by T. Coraghessan Boyle, <i>The New Yorker</i> (April 14, 2008). Stephen Colbert read this story for <a href="https://www.symphonyspace.org/selected-shorts" target="_blank">Selected Shorts</a>, and it is included in Selected Shorts: Even More Laughs. The compilation, which is available in various locations such as Audible and OverDrive, also includes "The Spray" by Jonathan Lethem, "The Swim Team" by Miranda July, and other stories.</p><p><i><br />I arrived in Copenhagen sweaty and halfway out of myself after an extremely fictional flight. Frankly, I would use that word for any air travel, but on this trip I had, shortly after takeoff, fallen into a light feverish daze in which I relived a series of flights I had taken earlier in my life.</i><br />—From "<a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/04/19/alvin" target="_blank">Alvin</a>," a short story by Jonas Eika, translated from the Danish by Sherilyn Nicolette Hellberg, <i>The New Yorker</i> (April 19, 2021), pp. 52-59.<span face="Georgia, "Times New Roman", sans-serif" style="background-color: #fff3db; color: #29303b; font-size: 13px;"> </span></p><p><span style="color: #29303b;"><span style="background-color: #fff3db; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span></span><i>"This new guy I'm dating is driving me crazy. His reply to everything is, 'Oh, yeah, I'm famous for that.'"<br /></i><i> "Uh. I know what you mean. I dated a guy who did the same thing. And it would always be to the most ridiculous stuff, like, you'd say, 'I hate when people leave the cap off the toothpaste.' And he'd say, 'Oh, yeah, I'm famous for that.'"<br /></i><i> "Ha! That's Jeffrey to a T! As if anyone could be famous for something so stupid. I mean, who's he famous to anyway?"<br /></i><i> "Wait a minute—</i>Jeffrey?<i> He wouldn't happen to work at a trattoria on Stockton Street?"<br /></i><i> "Yeah, how did you—"<br /></i><i> "Wow."<br /></i><i> "No kidding. I guess he </i>is<i> famous for something."<br /></i>—From <i><a href="https://citylights.com/san-francisco-west-coast/everything-is-its-own-reward/" target="_blank">Everything Is Its Own Reward</a>: An All Over Coffee Collection</i>, a large collection of meticulous pen and ink cityscapes and thoughts from the weekly <i>San Francisco Chronicle</i> series "All Over Coffee" by Paul Madonna (City Lights Books, 2011). This is his second collection of work from the newspaper. My favorite panels from this book were on pages 75, 82, 103, and 207. The excerpt quoted here is from page 75. </p>Leah Browninghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10253175536656237978noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-72398510229347220.post-2158087478977568772023-01-18T10:11:00.002-08:002023-01-18T10:17:49.913-08:00Fiction by Ben Okri, Claire Keegan, Sayaka Murata, and Jai Chakrabarti, and a graphic novel by Yeon-sik Hong<p>~ <br /><i>The first time he realized that there was something not quite right about him was when a woman crossed the street as she saw him coming. He thought it was a coincidence. Then it happened again. <br /></i><i> He began to watch those around him. One day, on the Underground, a woman three empty seats away moved her handbag to her other side when she saw him. He wasn’t sure why.<br /></i><i> After the fourth or fifth time something like that happened, he looked at himself in the mirror. He thought he was normal, like everyone else. But when he looked at himself through the eyes of those who clutched their handbags when they saw him he understood that his face was not as normal as he’d thought.<br /></i>—From "<a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/02/08/a-wrinkle-in-the-realm" target="_blank">A Wrinkle in the Realm</a>," a short story by Ben Okri, <i>The New Yorker</i> (February 8, 2021), pp. 52-54. Okri is the author of several books including <i><a href="https://www.akashicbooks.com/catalog/prayer-for-the-living/" target="_blank">Prayer for the Living</a></i>, a collection of stories (Akashic Books, 2021). My favorites from that book were all clumped together in the middle: "The Canopy" (pp. 75-77), "In the Ghetto" (78-85), and "Mysteries" (89-99). "Mysteries" was first published in the <i><a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/mysteries-by-ben-okri-tv70z3rz3rw" target="_blank">Sunday Times Magazine</a></i> in 2009. <br /><i><br /></i></p><p><i>Early on a Sunday, after first Mass in Clonegal, my father, instead of taking me home, drives deep into Wexford towards the coast where my mother's people came from. It is a hot day, bright, with patches of shade and greenish, sudden light along the road. We pass through the village of Shillelagh where my father lost our red Shorthorn in a game of forty-five, and on past the mart in Carnew where the man who won the heifer sold her shortly afterwards. My father throws his hat on the passenger seat, winds down the window, and smokes. I shake the plaits out of my hair and lie flat on the back seat, looking up through the rear window.<br /></i>—From <i><a href="https://groveatlantic.com/book/foster/" target="_blank">Foster</a></i>, a short novel by Claire Keegan (Grove Press, 2022). This book was first published in the United Kingdom in 2010 by Faber & Faber Limited. <br /><i><br /></i></p><p><i>After classes ended, I ran to the mountain behind our school. There was a small hut on the mountain where Yuki and I kept our secret pet. In my bag I had three bread rolls left over from lunch.</i><br />—From <i><a href="https://groveatlantic.com/book/life-ceremony/" target="_blank">Life Ceremony</a></i>, a collection of short stories by Sayaka Murata, translated from the Japanese by Ginny Tapley Takemori (Grove Press, 2022). This excerpt is from "Poochie" (pp. 63-68). My favorite stories from this collection were "A Summer Night's Kiss" and "Two's Family" (pp. 45-58), "The Time of the Large Star" (59-62), and "Poochie" (63-68). <br /><br /></p><p><i>She changes out of her jeans and caftan and into a starched white sari, applies makeup that accentuates the wrinkles around her eyes, then streaks her temples with washout gray and snaps on eyelash extensions. She takes another moment to fix her hair into a bun with two gilded bobby pins. The final touch is a red bindi placed in the absolute center of her forehead. She believes her clients are often struck by the bindi's perfect symmetry, the high cheekbones it calls into focus. It's simple enough to transform into an elderly woman, so simple in fact that she has begun to wonder, at forty-two, whether she's actually taken on the accoutrements of old age decades before her time.<br /></i>—From "<a href="https://one-story.com/product/a-mothers-work/" target="_blank">A Mother's Work</a>," a short story by Jai Chakrabarti, <i>One Story</i>, Issue 294 (October 20, 2022).<br /><i><br /></i></p><p><i>I have all this clean air and can collect wild plants and hunt for fish. As long as I have the desire to work on a graphic novel, what's the problem? This is no joke . . . These days, I'm worried about just buying rice . . . I have a household that I'm responsible for. I can't just run away from life to work on a graphic novel. If I just had enough money to live a simple life . . .</i><br />—From <i><a href="https://drawnandquarterly.com/books/uncomfortably-happily/" target="_blank">Uncomfortably Happily</a></i>, a graphic novel by Yeon-sik Hong, translated from the Korean by Hellen Jo (Drawn & Quarterly, 2017). The excerpt above is from page 84. This book was originally published in Korea as <i>Bul-pyeon-ha-go haeng-bo-ka-ge</i> (2012).</p>Leah Browninghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10253175536656237978noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-72398510229347220.post-62950046863179734582022-11-27T12:29:00.001-08:002022-11-27T12:30:19.187-08:00Fiction by Ling Ma, Per Petterson, Tove Ditlevsen, and Lydia Millet, and essays by David Sedaris<p>~<br /><i>The last thing I remembered was her demonstration of putting on an oxygen mask in case of emergency. Standing in front of the curtain divider separating Economy from First Class, she had mimed disaster protocol. In case of an ocean landing, the seat cushion could be used as a flotation device. I had closed my eyes then. In case of a crash, I thought, as the Ambien took effect, my husband would put the oxygen mask on me. He would inflate my seat cushion for me. We'd reconcile our marriage in the face of catastrophe.<br /> I disembarked from the plane. Peter was not at the exit either. A welcome sign, printed in English, greeted all arriving travelers: THERE ARE NO STRANGERS IN GARBOZA. </i><br />—From <i><a href="https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374293512/blissmontage" target="_blank">Bliss Montage</a></i>, a collection of short stories by Ling Ma (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2022). This segment, from the short story "Returning" (pp. 87-136), appears on page 88 of the hardcover. <br /><i><br /></i></p><p><i>I cannot remember exactly the first time I took the bus down to Oslo city centre to walk the streets of an evening, go to bars, visit pubs and cafés, but it must have been shortly after Turid marched out, the same month, most likely, and therefore one long year after the ship burned with my loved ones in it, as they put it on the news, his loved ones perished onboard a burning ship, in a cabin, in a corridor, they vanished at sea, they fell out of this life not far from a duty-free shop. <br /> What I remember is sitting in my usual seat at the very back of the bus, on the way down from Bjølsen, Sagene, wearing my best clothes, which was my reefer jacket, the same old, but with new brass buttons I had bought from a helpful lady with needle and thread at the Button House behind the Parliament building, and every button shiny bright with an anchor stamped on it. I wore a yellow neckerchief with the knot at the back and outmoded, undramatically flared trousers to accentuate the sailor style. I was freshly showered, my hair freshly washed, I was making up for what was lost, whatever lost there was, I was thirty-eight years old, everything was blown, I had nothing left.</i><br />—From <i><a href="https://www.graywolfpress.org/books/men-my-situation" target="_blank">Men in My Situation</a></i>, a novel by Per Petterson, translated from the Norwegian by Ingvild Burkey (Graywolf Press, 2022). The excerpt above appears on page 19 of the hardcover. This book was originally published as <i>Menn i min situasjon</i> in Norway in 2018 by Forlaget Oktober AS, and it was first published in English by Harvill Secker/Penguin Random House UK in 2021.<br /><i><br /></i></p><p><i>In the evening it was a little better. She could smooth it out and look at it, cautiously, hoping that someday she would have a full view of it, as if it were an unfinished, multi-colored Gobelin tapestry whose pattern would perhaps be revealed one day. The voices came back to her; with a little patience, they could be unraveled from each other like the strands of a tangled ball of yarn. She could think about the words in peace, without fearing that new ones would appear before the night was over. During this time the night held the days apart only with difficulty, and if she happened to breathe a hole into the darkness, like on a frost-covered windowpane, the morning might shine into her eyes hours ahead of time. </i><br />—From <i><a href="https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250838193/thefaces" target="_blank">The Faces</a></i>, a short novel by Tove Ditlevsen, translated from the Danish by Tiina Nunnally (Picador, 2022). This book was originally published in 1968 by Hasselbalch, Denmark, as <i>Ansigterne</i>. <br /><i><br /></i></p><p><i>I had assumed for some reason that a firing range would be outdoors, but instead it was situated in a strip mall, next to a tractor-supply store. Inside were glass display cases filled with weapons, and a wall of purses a woman could hide a dainty pistol in. This was a niche market I knew nothing about until I returned to Lisa’s house later that day and went online. There I found websites selling gun-concealing vests, T-shirts, jackets—you name it. One company makes boxer briefs with a holster in the back, which they call "Compression Concealment Shorts" but which I would call gunderpants.<br /></i>—From <i><a href="https://www.littlebrown.com/titles/david-sedaris/happy-go-lucky/9780316392457/" target="_blank">Happy-Go-Lucky</a></i>, a collection of essays by David Sedaris (Little, Brown & Company, 2022). This segment is from the essay "Active Shooter" (pp. 3-15), which first appeared in <i><a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/07/09/active-shooter" target="_blank">The New Yorker</a> </i>(July 2, 2018).<br /><i><br /></i></p><p><i>When he decided to leave New York, he chose Arizona because of some drone footage he'd seen. It wove through the canyons of red-rock mountain foothills, over sage-green scrub and towering cacti with their arms outstretched. Then up into the higher elevations, where there were forests of ponderosa pine.</i><br />—From <i><a href="https://wwnorton.com/books/9781324021469" target="_blank">Dinosaurs</a></i>, a novel by Lydia Millet (W.W. Norton & Company, 2022). </p>Leah Browninghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10253175536656237978noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-72398510229347220.post-55178092363581849012022-10-26T12:21:00.000-07:002022-10-26T12:21:26.075-07:00Collections of literature on migraine, poetry by Arab women, essays by Ashley Marie Farmer, and short stories by Sindya Bhanoo<p>~<br /><i>We're driving through South Dakota when I see the tall grass on the side of the road turn liquid. Then the plains come alive: They breathe and relax, breathe and relax. We could be in a boat on a golden ocean for all the dipping and swaying. After a while, the horizon flickers and sends up a filmy light. The air itself is viscous, moved by wind, distorting the landscape. </i><br />—From "The Lightning in My Eyes," an essay by Jean Hanson, from <i><a href="https://www.kentstateuniversitypress.com/2019/more-than-headach/" target="_blank">So Much More Than a Headache: Understanding Migraine through Literature</a> </i>(The Kent State University Press, 2020), a collection edited by Kathleen J. O'Shea. This essay appeared on pages 30-35.<br /><i><br /></i></p><p><i>After a supper of roasted lamb and eggplant, <br />fish baked with tahini and lemon,<br />Mother offers everyone demitasse.<br />She places the small gold cups <br />just so on the Quaker lace.</i><br />—From "The World Is a Wedding," a poem by Adele Ne Jame, from <i><a href="https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781566563741" target="_blank">The Poetry of Arab Women</a></i> (Interlink Books, 2001), a collection edited by Nathalie Handal. This poem appeared on pages 241-242. "The World Is a Wedding" was originally published in a collection of Adele Ne Jame's poetry, <i>Field Work</i> (Petronium Press, 1996).<br /><i><br /></i></p><p><i>On January 19, 2014, my grandfather Bill walked into my grandmother Frances's hospital room with a loaded gun he'd purchased that morning. He set their Neptune Society cards side by side on a nearby table and kissed his sleeping wife of sixty-three years. Then he shot her once in a the chest. He tried to shoot himself, too, but a spring popped from the pawn shop gun and the weapon broke apart in his hands. . . . <br /> See, two weeks before my grandfather bought the gun, my grandmother tripped as she walked across their living room. It was a swift accident on an ordinary day . . .</i><br />—From <i><a href="https://www.sarabandebooks.org/titles-20192039/dear-damage-ashley-marie-farmer" target="_blank">Dear Damage</a></i>, a collection of essays by Ashley Marie Farmer (Sarabande Books, 2022). These two segments appear on pages 3 and 6 and are from the first essay, "Mercy." <br /><i><br /></i></p><p><i>I held his hand until the ambulance arrived. It was the first time that I had held a man's hand since my husband died. The rectangular diamond on Mr. Swaminathan's gold ring was hard and cold in contrast to his warm skin. Before they loaded his body onto the gurney, he opened his eyes, looked at me, and said, "Renuka." Then he squeezed my hand. Whether he was asking me to summon his wife, or whether he thought I </i>was<i> his wife, I cannot say. He died before he reached the hospital. He was seventy-five years old, the same age my husband would be if he were alive today.</i><br />—From <i><a href="https://books.catapult.co/books/seeking-fortune-elsewhere/" target="_blank">Seeking Fortune Elsewhere</a></i>, a collection of short stories by Sindya Bhanoo (Catapult, 2022). This section is from the first story, "Malliga Homes," which was first published in <i><a href="https://granta.com/malliga-homes/" target="_blank">Granta</a></i>. It was the winner of the Disquiet Prize for Fiction 2020 and was selected by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie for an O. Henry Prize.<br /><i><br /></i></p><p><i>I was at the college for an author talk on a novel based on local history. A few dozen people attended and most of us headed afterward to a refreshment table loaded with desserts prepared by students in the culinary school. I put slices of pound cake and chocolate cake on a paper plate and I stood at a small table that supported my cup of water as I ate. If the cake hadn't looked so delicious I'd have bolted after the writer's last word because I'd seen Mr. and Mrs. Y in the audience and feared she'd buttonhole me. Mrs. Y and I were former colleagues and we hadn't seen each other in almost a year.<br /></i>—From "<a href="https://newworldwriting.net/glen-pourciau-two-short-pieces/" target="_blank">Buttonhole</a>," a story by Glen Pourciau, <i>New World Writing Quarterly</i> (October 5, 2022). <span style="background-color: #fff3db; color: #29303b; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"> </span></p>Leah Browninghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10253175536656237978noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-72398510229347220.post-88131617786815848932022-10-18T14:20:00.001-07:002023-10-12T12:39:49.008-07:00The Fall 2022 issue of the Apple Valley Review<p>~<br />The Fall 2022 issue of the <i>Apple Valley Review</i> features short fiction by Emmanuel Nwafor, K.
A. Polzin, Conor Barnes, and Magda Bartkowska; creative nonfiction by Yuko Iida
Frost; poetry by Eric Braude, Tina Blade, Miriam Levine, Paul Dickey, Devon
Brock, Hedy Habra, and Matthew Johnson; and cover artwork by Japanese woodblock
printmaker Hasui Kawase. <br /><br />The <i>Apple Valley Review</i> is a semiannual online literary journal. The current issue, previous issues, subscription information, and complete submission guidelines are available at <a href="https://www.applevalleyreview.com" target="_blank">www.applevalleyreview.com</a>. </p>Leah Browninghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10253175536656237978noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-72398510229347220.post-8047024765106652222022-09-14T12:16:00.000-07:002022-09-14T12:16:15.742-07:00Short stories by Michael Chabon, fiction by Ludmilla Petrushevskaya, and poetry by Iman Mersal, James Harmon Clinton, and Valzhyna Mort<p>~<br /><i>Very early one Tuesday morning in March—I remember it was still dark, and there were three nurses waiting for a bus on the corner—I came in from the bone-snapping cold to find several lights on and the apartment warm. It surprised me to find Harry home, and awake, since lately he had taken to spending almost every night at Kim's, over on Beacon, and I was even more surprised that he had turned on the steam heat. Out of Harry's chronic tightfistedness—we were responsible for half of the heating bill—and some perverse impulse of mine to test our seven years' friendship, we had at some point during December made a tacit pact never to open the radiators, and ever since we had been going around the house in our ski caps and down coats, exhaling puffs of vapor in the frigid bathroom and wearing gloves to cook dinner; the clouds of steam produced by the act of dumping a boiling pot of spaghetti into a colander in the sink were thick and billowing. It was a kind of dare, to see who would succumb first to the cold, but it did not please me to discover that I had won. Something was the matter with Harry. <br /></i>—From "Millionaires," a short story by Michael Chabon, from his collection <i><a href="https://www.harpercollins.com/products/a-model-world-and-other-stories-michael-chabon?variant=32154052624418" target="_blank">A Model World and Other Stories</a></i> (Harper Perennial, 2005), pp. 105-127. The segment here is from pages 106-107. The collection was first published in hardcover by Avon in 1992. This particular story first appeared in <i>The New Yorker</i>, Issue 197 (January 29, 1990). If you have a subscription to <i>The New Yorker</i>, you can sign in and read "Millionaires" in a <a href="https://archives.newyorker.com/newyorker/1990-01-29/flipbook/032/" target="_blank">flipbook from the archive</a>. The story starts on page 32 of the issue from January 29, 1990.<br /><br /></p><p><i>Night. The kid's asleep. I keep up my defences, though every now and then my daughter delivers a new blow: just before New Year—I'll never forget this—Tima and I were planning to spend it at home, as usual no one had invited us anywhere, we went to the Christmas tree market and gathered up a bouquet of the bushiest fan-shaped branches, just like a tree! Then we made some little flags and animals out of coloured paper from old magazines, and at that point Alyona shows up, supposedly to wish us a happy New Year; she'd bought Tima a blue plastic cat of surpassing ugliness but Tima made a great fuss of it, tucked it up in bed, and I didn't tell the poor child that his own mother, completely brazen, had stolen from her own family home two boxes of Christmas tree decorations, leaving us only three. I wept. </i><br />—From <i><a href="https://www.abebooks.com/Time-Night-Petrushevskaya-Ludmilla-Northwestern-University/30592913708/bd" target="_blank">The Time: Night</a></i>, a short novel by Ludmilla Petrushevskaya, translated from the Russian by Sally Laird (Northwestern University Press, 2000). Originally published in Russian in <i>Novy Mir</i>, No. 2, 1992. First published in English by Pantheon Books, New York, and and Virago Press Limited, London. This segment is from page 30.<br /> </p><p><i>Once, on the train, an Afghan woman who had never seen Afghanistan said to me, "Triumph is possible." Is that a prophecy? I wanted to ask. But my Persian was straight from a beginner’s textbook and she looked, while listening to me, as though she were picking through a wardrobe whose owner had died in a fire. <br /></i>—From "<a href="https://www.theparisreview.org/poetry/6095/a-celebration-iman-mersal" target="_blank">A Celebration</a>," a prose poem by Iman Mersal, translated from the Arabic by Robyn Creswell, <i>The Paris Review</i>, Issue 197 (Summer 2011). <br /><br /></p><p><i>I have abstained from grief these past days.<br />Now the rain approaches like a slow train,<br /></i><i>summer in its carriage. . . . </i><br />—From "<a href="https://thedecadentreview.com/corpus/not-in-matter/" target="_blank">Not in Matter</a>," a poem by James Harmon Clinton, <i>The Decadent Review</i>. <br /><br /></p><p><i>As I eat my lunch, you talk, with gusto, about hunger. When I complain about my unfashionable clothes, you laugh remembering your wedding—you borrowed a white robe from a nurse to wear as a wedding dress. When I beg for privacy, you ask: "Did I tell you about the day the Bolsheviks came to take the roof off our farmhouse?" Or worse: "Did I tell you about the house where my mother died right after sending my brothers and me to an orphanage?" "Did I tell you about how Uncle Kazik died?" "Did I tell you how the Soviets took my father twice, and since he did return after the first time, I didn't cry a bit when they took him the second time?" </i><br />—From "Baba Bronya," a prose poem by Valzhyna Mort, from her collection <i><a href="https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374252069/musicforthedeadandresurrected" target="_blank">Music for the Dead and Resurrected</a></i> (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2020). This poem appears on pages 52-57 of the hardcover. <span style="background-color: #fff3db; color: #29303b; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"> </span></p>Leah Browninghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10253175536656237978noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-72398510229347220.post-26351932302071567812022-08-30T11:31:00.001-07:002022-08-30T11:35:06.909-07:00Poetry by Danusha Laméris and Marie Howe, a novel by Elisa Shua Dusapin, nonfiction by Ann Patchett, and short stories by Eudora Welty<p>~<br /><i>At night, my husband takes it off<br />puts it on the dresser beside his wallet and keys<br />laying down, for a moment, the accoutrements of manhood. </i><br />—From "<a href="https://aprweb.org/poems/the-watch" target="_blank">The Watch</a>," a poem by Danusha Laméris, <i>The American Poetry Review</i>, Volume 45, Number 06 (November/December 2016) and <i>Best American Poetry 2017</i>. <br /><i><br /></i></p><p><i>That he wrote it with his hand and folded the paper<br /></i><i>and slipped it into the envelope and sealed it with his tongue<br /></i><i>and pressed it closed so I might open it with my fingers. <br /></i>—From "<a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/03/21/the-letter-1968" target="_blank">The Letter, 1968</a>," a poem by Marie Howe, <i>The New Yorker</i> (March 21, 2022), p. 59. <br /><i><br /></i></p><p><i>He arrived bundled up in a winter coat.</i><br /><i> He put his suitcase down at my feet and pulled off his hat. Western face. Dark eyes. Hair combed to one side. He looked straight through me, without seeing me. Somewhat impatiently, he asked me in English if he could stay for a few days while he looked around for something else. I gave him a registration form to fill in. He handed me his passport so I could do it for him. Yan Kerrand, 1968, from Granville. A Frenchman. He seemed younger than in the photo, his cheeks less hollow. I held out my pencil for him to sign and he took a pen from his coat.<br /></i>—From <i><a href="https://www.openletterbooks.org/products/winter-in-sokcho" target="_blank">Winter in Sokcho</a></i>, a novel by Elisa Shua Dusapin, translated from the French by Aneesa Abbas Higgins (Open Letter, 2021). It was first published in French in 2016 as <i>Hiver à Sokcho</i> and is now available in several other languages. The first edition in English in the United Kingdom was published by Daunt Books (2020). <br /><i><br /></i></p><p><i>I was no stranger to the single engine. My stepfather Mike had rented planes when I was growing up, and, with my mother, flew to some of the medical meetings where he gave lectures. Sometimes I was in the back with the luggage. My mother had taken enough flying lessons to know how to land should she be called upon to do so. She went so far as to solo, but then quit before she got her license. When we moved to the country outside of Nashville, Mike bought a tiny bright-red helicopter which he flew for years. He kept it in a hangar in the front of the farm where we lived. </i><br />—From "Flight Plan," an essay by Ann Patchett, in her collection <i><a href="https://www.parnassusbooks.net/book/9780063092785" target="_blank">These Precious Days</a></i> (HarperCollins, 2021). This essay begins on page 91 of the hardcover. <br /><br /></p><p><i>When he got to his own house, William Wallace saw to his surprise that it had not rained at all. But there, curved over the roof, was something he had never seen before as long as he could remember, a rainbow at night. In the light of the moon, which had risen again, it looked small and of gauzy material, like a lady’s summer dress, a faint veil through which the stars showed.<br /></i>—From "The Wide Net," a short story by Eudora Welty, in <i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Selected-Stories-Eudora-Containing-Curtain/dp/B000GTGCDY" target="_blank">Selected Stories of Eudora Welty</a></i> , containing all of <i>A Curtain of Green and Other Stories</i> and <i>The Wide Net and Other Stories</i> (The Modern Library/Random House, 1943). This segment is from page 70 of the second half of the book. I was inspired to pick it back up again after reading one of Ann Patchett's essays in <i>These Precious Days</i>, "Eudora Welty, an Introduction," pp. 85-90. </p>Leah Browninghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10253175536656237978noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-72398510229347220.post-61657965618479562592022-04-09T13:42:00.003-07:002022-04-09T13:48:49.663-07:00Fiction by Ayşegül Savaş and Camille Bordas, and poetry by Chloe Honum <p>~<br /><i>I'd been at the apartment for two months when Agnes wrote that she was coming. <br /> I heard her from the bedroom late one evening. The door in the hallway opened and closed. She didn't call out to me before going up to the studio. <br /> The following day as I was leaving for the library, I ran into her on the building stairs. She was tall and pleasingly thin. Her dark hair was tied back in a ponytail. She was dressed in a crisp white shirt, opening up into an elegant ruffle on one side of her waist, at once striking and casual. Her shoes resembled royal slippers and were the same soft shade of green as her trousers. She may have been on her way to the opera or to a bookshop and would have been comfortable in either place. She wore no ornaments, except for a rectangular gray stone ring on one finger, which I noticed when she extended her hand. <br /> "You must be our tenant," she said. "Finally, we meet." <br /> She enunciated each word, as if she were reading aloud from a book. <br /></i>—From <i><a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/669773/white-on-white-by-aysegul-savas/" target="_blank">White on White</a></i>, a novel by Ayşegül Savaş (Riverhead Books, 2021). This section is from page 14 of the hardcover.<br /><i><br /></i></p><p><i>This is not a rewrite of that story in which plants and animals and people keep winding up dead over the course of a school year, but it starts the same, and it feels odd not to acknowledge, so I will. I just did. Things kept dying. My father first, in June, then the puppy my ex-wife had adopted to help the children get over their grandpa, and then the school janitor, Lane. Right after Halloween, Lane had died during lunchtime in the cafeteria, in front of the kids. Heart attack. A few weeks later, my son, Ernest, came home from school and told me that he hoped there was no afterlife.<br /></i><i> "I hope there’s no afterlife," he said. We were in the living room, looking through the window, waiting to see if the rain would turn to snow. "I hope he's not watching over me."<br /></i><i> I asked who he meant. I thought maybe he was talking about my father, but perhaps it was Lane on his mind. I didn't think it could be the dog.<br /></i>—From "<a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/03/07/one-sun-only" target="_blank">One Sun Only</a>," a short story by Camille Bordas, <i>The New Yorker</i> (March 7, 2022), pp. 58-64.<br /><i><br /></i></p><p><i>Nightly, the smoke from the neighbor's incinerator pawed the air<br /></i><i> in our garden. Black flecks of newspaper settled<br /></i><i>across the violets. . . .<br /></i>—From "Nightfall in Spring," a poem by Chloe Honum, from her collection <i><a href="https://www.tupelopress.org/product/the-lantern-room/" target="_blank">The Lantern Room</a></i> (Tupelo Press, 2022), p. 9. My other favorite from this collection of poems was the one that inspired me to buy the book in the first place: "<a href="https://poets.org/poem/days-inn-barstow-california" target="_blank">At a Days Inn in Barstow, California</a>" (Poem-a-Day, May 15, 2019, Academy of American Poets). It appeared on page 46 of <i>The Lantern Room</i>. Many of the poems from this book previously appeared in her chapbook <a href="https://bullcitypress.com/product/then-winter/" target="_blank"><i>Then Winter</i></a> (Bull City Press, 2017). Honum is also the author of <i><a href="http://www.csupoetrycenter.com/books/the-tulip-flame" target="_blank">The Tulip-Flame</a></i> (Cleveland State University Poetry Center, 2014). That book's cover, which I find really astonishing, features a photograph of this piece of artwork: <i>Bust (Impression)</i>, life size: 17" x 21.5" x 13", 2005, cast glass, by Karen LaMonte. </p>Leah Browninghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10253175536656237978noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-72398510229347220.post-58235466135250360192022-04-04T14:35:00.005-07:002023-10-12T12:40:11.991-07:00The Spring 2022 issue of the Apple Valley Review<p style="text-align: left;">~<br />The Spring 2022 issue of the <i>Apple Valley Review</i> features creative nonfiction by Charlotte San Juan and Amy Kroin; short fiction by Péter Moesko (translated from the Hungarian by Walter Burgess and Marietta Morry) and Lucy Zhang; poetry by Jane C. Miller, Wojciech Kass (translated from the Polish by Daniel Bourne), Lulu Liu, Paola d’Agnese (translated from the Italian by Toti O’Brien), Amanda Rachel Robins, and Nathaniel Cairney; and a cover photograph by Kyaw Tun.<br /><br /></p><p style="text-align: left;">The <i>Apple Valley Review</i> is a semiannual online literary journal. The current issue, previous issues, subscription information, and complete submission guidelines are available at <a href="https://www.applevalleyreview.com" target="_blank">www.applevalleyreview.com</a>.</p>Leah Browninghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10253175536656237978noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-72398510229347220.post-77169220915233339292022-02-24T10:43:00.003-08:002022-02-24T10:45:47.557-08:00Fiction by Ayşegül Savaş and several poems <p>~<br /><i>She didn't think they'd be staying home very much—there were so many places she wanted to take Leo—but she had in mind a scene of the two of them eating in bed. Did people really do that? It seemed as though there would be too much mess, nowhere to put your plate. Still, she liked the idea: the sleepy indulgence, the sheets streaked with light—the hour, in her imagination, was late afternoon, which may have been the reason for the beer, though this particular timing would require some planning, with everything else she wanted to do with him.<br /></i>—From "<a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/01/31/long-distance" target="_blank">Long Distance</a>," a short story by Ayşegül Savaş, <i>The New Yorker</i> (January 31, 2022), pp. 50-55.<br /><i><br /></i></p><p><i>It's dusk on a Tuesday in June. A hot wind<br /> bears down and east. In my room, a stranger's<br />hairclip lies like a gilded insect beside the sink.<br /></i>—From "<a href="https://poets.org/poem/days-inn-barstow-california" target="_blank">At a Days Inn in Barstow, California</a>," a poem by Chloe Honum (Poem-a-Day, May 15, 2019, Academy of American Poets). <br /><i><br /></i></p><p><i>When the big clock at the train station stopped,<br />the leaves kept falling,<br />the trains kept running,<br /></i><i>my mother's hair kept growing longer and blacker,<br /></i><i>and my father's body kept filling up with time.<br /></i>—From "<a href="https://poets.org/poem/big-clock" target="_blank">Big Clock</a>," a poem by Li-Young Lee (Poem-a-Day, December 8, 2021, Academy of American Poets). <br /><i><br /></i></p><p><i>We stop at the dry cleaners and the grocery store <br />and the gas station and the green market and <br /></i><i>Hurry up honey, I say, hurry, <br /></i><i>as she runs along two or three steps behind me . . . <br /></i>—From "<a href="https://poets.org/poem/hurry" target="_blank">Hurry</a>," a poem by Marie Howe, from her collection <i>Kingdom of Ordinary Time</i> (W. W. Norton, 2008). Her poem "<a href="https://poets.org/poem/my-dead-friends" target="_blank">My Dead Friends</a>" was just published two days ago (Poem-a-Day, February 22, 2022, Academy of American Poets).<br /><i><br /></i></p><p><i>Behind the brick house next to us: <br /></i><i>an indoor pool, enormous, used only <br /></i><i>by invisible swimmers.<br /></i><i>All winter the windows steam and clear. <br /></i>—From "Neighbors," a poem by Laura Cherry, from her collection <i><a href="https://store.cooperdillon.com/product/haunts-by-laura-cherry" target="_blank">Haunts</a></i> (Cooper Dillon Books, 2010), p. 35. It previously appeared in her chapbook, <i>What We Planted</i>, which was the winner of the 2002 Philbrick Poetry Award by the Providence Athenaeum. My other favorite from <i>Haunts</i> was "The Grownups Take Charge," the third part of a four-part poem, p. 70. </p>Leah Browninghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10253175536656237978noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-72398510229347220.post-83512966142593740282022-01-31T11:32:00.000-08:002022-01-31T11:32:48.829-08:00Poetry by Louise Glück, an essay by Akhil Sharma, and fiction by Choi Eunyoung and Domenico Starnone<p>~<br /><i>My story begins very simply: I could speak and I was happy.<br />Or: I could speak, thus I was happy.<br />Or: I was happy, thus speaking.<br />I was like a bright light passing through a dark room. <br /></i>—From <i><a href="https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374152017/faithfulandvirtuousnight" target="_blank">Faithful and Virtuous Night</a></i>, an award-winning collection of poems by Louise Glück (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2014). This section is from the title poem, pp. 8-17. My other favorite poems in this collection are "A Sharply Worded Silence," pp. 19-21; "The Melancholy Assistant," pp. 45-46; and "A Foreshortened Journey," pp. 47-48.<br /><i><br /></i></p><p><i>She kept checking her reflection in building windows. This was our first invitation to someone's home since we'd arrived [in Germany] three months before, so I guessed Mom was feeling nervous in a good way.<br /> "Xin chào." Mom said the memorized Vietnamese greeting when Mrs. Nguyển opened the front door. I chimed in, "Xin chào," and Mrs. Nguyển smiled in delighted surprise. She greeted us like we were old friends she hadn't seen in years. Mr. Hồ was in the kitchen. His ruddy cheeks and boyishly mischievous face instantly won me over. Mr. Hồ was Dad's coworker, and when he discovered I'd become classmates with his son, Thuỷ, he invited our whole family to his house.<br /> The dinner Mr. Hồ made was simple, cozy fare. I'm not sure if you can call food "cozy," but there's no other word for it. Beef stew with tomatoes cooked over a slow fire, fragrant steamed rice, grilled prawns, sauteed vegetables, savory fried dumplings with half a lime squeezed over them. </i><br />—From <i><a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/623820/shokos-smile-by-choi-eunyoung-translated-by-sung-ryu/" target="_blank">Shoko's Smile</a></i>, a collection of short stories by Choi Eunyoung, translated from the Korean by Sung Ryu (Penguin Books, 2021). This section is from "Xin Chào, Xin Chào," pp. 59-85. My other favorite story in this collection is the last one, "The Secret," pp. 232-256. <br /><i><br /></i></p><p><i>Christine grew up very poor in Dublin. As a child, she experienced periodic bouts of homelessness. When her family was able to get public housing, it was in a neighborhood where heroin was endemic. The family eventually settled in an area where children were regularly attacked by a local pit bull and people would come running with flaming torches, because fire was one of the few things that would make the dog unclench its jaws. I grew up with a severely brain-damaged brother, whom my parents took care of at home. My brother could not walk or talk or roll over in his sleep. Some nights, we didn't have health aides and my parents stayed up to turn him from side to side so he wouldn't get bedsores. My wife and I are careful people. We feel lucky to have the lives we have, and we don't want to mess them up. Our imaginary child was not careful at all.<br /></i><i> Normally, it is the parents who imagine a future for the child and, through the imagining, hold open a space for the child to step into. In our case, it was the reverse.<br /></i>—From "<a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/01/31/a-passage-to-parenthood" target="_blank">A Passage to Parenthood</a>," published in print as "Imagining Ziggy," a personal essay by Akhil Sharma, <i>The New Yorker</i> (January 31, 2022), pp. 24-28.<br /><i><br /></i></p><p><i>On that occasion, maybe I interrupted her one too many times, since I liked the girl from Arles and wanted her to like me. Then Teresa turned to me, furious, seizing the bread knife and shouting: try to cut off what I'm saying one more time and I'll cut out your tongue and then some. We faced off in public as if we were alone, and today I believe we really were, such was the extent that we were absorbed with each other, for good and for ill. Our acquaintances were there, sure, and the girl from Arles, but they were inessential figures, all that mattered was our ongoing attraction and repulsion. It was as if our boundless admiration for each other only served to ascertain that we loathed each other, and vice versa. </i><br />—From <i><a href="https://www.europaeditions.com/book/9781609457037/trust" target="_blank">Trust</a></i>, a novel by Domenico Starnone, translated from the Italian by Jhumpa Lahiri (Europa Editions, 2021). This segment appears on page 15. </p>Leah Browninghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10253175536656237978noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-72398510229347220.post-64906959556776032052021-12-30T15:29:00.001-08:002021-12-30T15:29:26.058-08:00Fiction by Elena Ferrante, Kiara Brinkman, Rumena Bužarovska, and Hiromi Kawakami, and poetry by Louise Glück and José Antonio Rodríguez<p>~ <br /><i>Day and night come<br />hand in hand like a boy and a girl<br />pausing only to eat wild berries out of a dish<br />painted with pictures of birds.</i><br />—From <i><a href="https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374604103/winterrecipesfromthecollective" target="_blank">Winter Recipes from the Collective</a></i>, poems by Louise Glück (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2021). This section is from "Poem," pp. 3-4. My favorite poem in this collection is "The Denial of Death," pp. 5-11.<br /><br /><i>Don't misunderstand me, I love a good poem<br /></i><i>Like half my Facebook friends, one that transports you<br /></i><i>To a corner of the soul you didn't know was there<br /></i><i>Because you couldn’t find the precise metaphor,<br /></i><i>Even if you felt it, like that time my parents saw<br /></i><i>A local news story of an older woman asking for help<br /></i><i>With an ailing husband, and I volunteered to drive them . . .<br /></i>—From "<a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/04/06/shelter" target="_blank">Shelter</a>," a poem by José Antonio Rodríguez, <i>The New Yorker</i> (April 6, 2020), pp. 48-49.<br /><br /><i>Two years before leaving home my father said to my mother that I was very ugly. The sentence was uttered under his breath, in the apartment that my parents, newly married, had bought at the top of Via San Giacomo dei Capri, in Rione Alto. Everything—the spaces of Naples, the blue light of a frigid February, those words—remained fixed. But I slipped away, and am still slipping away, within these lines that are intended to give me a story . . .<br /></i>—From <i><a href="https://www.europaeditions.com/book/9781609455910/the-lying-life-of-adults" target="_blank">The Lying Life of Adults</a></i>, a novel by Elena Ferrante, translated from the Italian by Ann Goldstein (Europa Editions, 2020).<br /><br /><i>Ronan's mother made him and his brother practice acting bad so it would look real when the nanny from the TV show came. The boys practiced punching at each other and biting, fighting over broken plastic toys that neither of them played with anymore. Their mother said that this was her chance to be discovered. National fucking TV.<br /></i><i> Ronan, she said, let me see you do a temper tantrum.<br /></i><i> I'm tired, he told her—because he was ten, too old for tantrums. It wouldn't be realistic.<br /></i>—From "<a href="https://www.one-story.com/index.php?page=stories&pubcode=os&story_id=91" target="_blank">If You Can Hear Me Thinking</a>," a short story by Kiara Brinkman, <i>One Story</i>, Volume 6, Number 1 (April 20, 2007).<br /><br /><i>Nenad lay down on his bed and turned his face to the wall, whimpering quietly now. He didn't react when I touched him. I sat on the side of the bed and gave him a lecture on stealing. I told him that if he stole things, he'd wind up in jail. But since he didn't react to either my caresses or my words I left him there and went to the living room. Gene was sitting staring at a blank TV screen.<br /></i><i> "Maybe you shouldn't have beaten him so hard," I said. "He's really upset."<br /></i>—From <i><a href="https://bookshop.org/books/my-husband-9781628973457/9781628973457" target="_blank">My Husband</a></i>, stories by Rumena Bužarovska, translated from the Macedonian by Paul Filev (Dalkey Archive Press, 2019). This segment is from "Genes," pp. 33-54.<br /><br /><i>A white cloth was lying at the foot of a zelkova tree. When I walked over and picked it up, I saw a child underneath. <br /></i>—From <i><a href="https://softskull.com/dd-product/people-from-my-neighborhood/" target="_blank">People from My Neighborhood</a></i>, stories by Hiromi Kawakami, translated from the Japanese by Ted Goossen (Soft Skull Press, 2021).</p>Leah Browninghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10253175536656237978noreply@blogger.com0