The Spring 2024 issue of the Apple Valley Review

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The Spring 2024 issue of the Apple Valley Review features features flash fiction by Andrew Siegrist, K. A. Polzin, and Leo Vanderpot; short stories by Thomas Mixon, Roger Mensink, and Molly Lurie-Marino; poetry by J. R. Forman, Stan Sanvel Rubin, Jadranka Milenković (translated from the Serbian by Petar Penda), Brian Johnson, Sarvin Parviz, and Judith Harris; and a cover image by Colombian photographer Edgar Serrano.

The Apple Valley Review is a semiannual online literary journal. The current issue, previous issues, subscription information, and complete submission guidelines are available at www.applevalleyreview.com.

Short stories by Kevin Barry, poetry by Judith Harris, a novel by Colm Tóibín, and essays by David Sedaris

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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.
—From "The Coast of Leitrim," the opening story of That Old Country Music, 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 That Old Country Music, 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. "The Coast of Leitrim" first appeared in print in The New Yorker (October 15, 2018), pp. 70-75, and is available online with the option to read and/or listen to the story. 

Then a flash of a cardinal
like a struck match, 
—From "Cardinal and Pine Through an Open Window," one of two poems by Judith Harris, Terrain.org (September 14, 2023).  

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. 
—From Brooklyn, a novel by Colm Tóibín (Scribner, 2009). The sequel to this book, Long Island, is forthcoming from Scribner on May 7, 2024.   

Bonus books to read again: 

"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." 
—From Naked, a memoir/collection of essays by David Sedaris (Back Bay Books/Little, Brown and Company, 1997).

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."
          Nothing I said would change her mind.  
—From Me Talk Pretty One Day, 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 This American Life (August 22, 1997) in an episode called "Blame It on Art."

Short stories by Cleo Qian, and novels by Alina Bronsky, Amy Tan, John Irving, and Anne Tyler

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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 Hakuoki: Demon of the Fleeting Blossom 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. 
—From Let's Go Let's Go Let's Go, a collection of short stories by Cleo Qian (Tin House, 2023). This particular segment is from "Zeros:Ones," which appears on pages 41-54 of the book and which was originally published, possibly in a slightly different form, in The Adroit Journal (Issue 45). This specific passage appeared on page 45 of the paperback. 

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.
—From Barbara Isn't Dying, a novel by Alina Bronsky, translated from the German by Tim Mohr (Europa Editions, 2023). This book was originally published in German as Barbara stirbt nicht (Kiepenheuer & Witsch: Germany, 2021). 

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.
—From The Hundred Secret Senses, 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. 

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.  
—From The Cider House Rules, a novel by John Irving (William Morrow and Company, 1985). This passage appears on page 86 of the hardcover published in 1985.   

Bonus book to read again: 

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."  
—From Morgan's Passing, a novel by Anne Tyler (Alfred A. Knopf, 1980). 

Poetry by Louise Glück, memoirs by Abigail Thomas and Busy Philipps, stories by Amparo Dávila, and a novel by Anne Tyler

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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.
—From "Five Louise Glück Poems to Get You Started," an article by Gregory Cowles, The New York Times (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: 

I see it is with you as with the birches:
I am not to speak to you
in the personal way. 

The full poem, "Matins" (meaning "Mornings" in French), is available online from the archive of the Los Angeles Times (September 20, 1992). It, along with others of the same title, is included in her collection The Wild Iris (Ecco, 1993). 

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. 
—From What Comes Next and How to Like It, 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). 

"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." 
—From This Will Only Hurt a Little, 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 Simon & Schuster.

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.
—From The Houseguest, 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."  

Bonus book to read again: 

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. 
—From Celestial Navigation, a novel by Anne Tyler (Alfred A. Knopf, 1974).

A novel by Paul Murray, a poem by Diane Seuss, short stories by Jess Walter, and memoirs by Stephanie Foo and Frank McCourt

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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.
—From The Bee Sting, a novel by Paul Murray (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2023). This segment is from page 7 of the hardcover. 

I’d just brushed the dog, there on the dog's couch.
I was wearing a black—well, to call it a gown is a criminal
overstatement—a black rag. 
—From "Gertrude Stein," a poem by Diane Seuss, The New Yorker (August 16, 2021), p. 52.

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. 
          "Dad? I'm not the bartender. It's Jay. Your son." 
          He stared at me. He was quiet a moment. Then: "Why don't you ever bring girlfriends home?"
          So. This was to be our Sisyphean hell—me coming out to my fading father every day for the rest of his life.
—From The Angel of Rome, a collection of short stories by Jess Walter (HarperCollins, 2022). My favorites were probably "Mr. Voice" (first published in Tin House and then in Best American Short Stories 2015) and the story excerpted above, "Town & Country," which appeared on pages 149-174 in the hardcover (from Scribd Originals, 2020).

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.
—From What My Bones Know, 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.

Bonus book to read again: 

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. 
—From Angela's Ashes, 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. 

The Fall 2023 issue of the Apple Valley Review

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The Fall 2023 issue of the Apple Valley Review 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.

The Apple Valley Review is a semiannual online literary journal. The current issue, previous issues, subscription information, and complete submission guidelines are available at www.applevalleyreview.com.

Novels by Jhumpa Lahiri and Francesca Ekwuyasi, short stories by Polly Rosenwaike, and memoir by Abigail Thomas

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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.  
—From The Lowland, a novel by Jhumpa Lahiri (Alfred A. Knopf, 2013; paperback Vintage, 2014). 

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."
          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." 
          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."  
—From Look How Happy I'm Making You, 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 WomenArts Quarterly Journal (Summer 2013). 

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. 
—From Safekeeping: Some True Stories from a Life, 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.) 

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.
—From A Three Dog Life, a memoir by Abigail Thomas (Harcourt, 2006). This is from the beginning of the opening essay, "What Stays the Same."

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.
          “Mami, good morning.” Taiye smiled and kissed her mother’s warm forehead.
—From Butter Honey Pig Bread, 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).