A Life of Adventure and Delight and other fiction

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I've been waiting a while to read A Life of Adventure and Delight, a collection of short stories by Akhil Sharma (W. W. Norton, 2017), and it was worth it.  Even the stories I'd read before knocked me out all over again.  (Some, if not all of them, have been revised since the original publications.)  David Sedaris wrote a couple of lines about the book that were included on the dust jacket of the hardcover: "There's a great duality to these stories: simple but complex, funny enough to laugh out loud at but emotionally devastating, foreign yet familiar.  What an exciting and original writer this is, and what a knock-out collection."  This really does sum it up. 

A little after ten in the morning Mrs. Shaw walked across Gopal Maurya's lawn to his house.  It was Saturday, and Gopal was asleep on the couch.  The house was dark.  When he first heard the doorbell, the ringing became part of a dream.  Only he had been in the house during the four months since his wife had followed his daughter out of his life, and the sound of the bell joined somehow with his dream to make him feel ridiculous.  Mrs. Shaw rang the bell again.  Gopal woke confused and anxious, the state he was in most mornings.  He was wearing only underwear and socks, but his blanket was cold from sweat.
--From "Cosmopolitan," a short story by Akhil Sharma, A Life of Adventure and Delight, pp. 13-45.  "Cosmopolitan" was first published in The Atlantic (January 1997).

One August afternoon, when Ajay was ten years old, his elder brother, Birju, dove into a pool and struck his head on the cement bottom.  For three minutes, he lay there unconscious.  Two boys continued to swim, kicking and splashing, until finally Birju was spotted below them.  
--From "Surrounded by Sleep," a short story by Akhil Sharma, A Life of Adventure and Delight, pp. 47-67.  An earlier version of "Surrounded by Sleep" was first published in The New Yorker (December 10, 2001).  (It shares a lot of details with Family Life, but even though I'd read that first, the story still had impact.) 

The side of the police van slid open, rattling, and he was shoved inside.  There were seven or eight men already sitting on the floor in the dark, their wrists handcuffed behind them.  Nobody said anything.  The van started with a jerk, then picked up speed.  His legs were stretched out in front of him, and he tried to use his cuffed hands to balance himself, but the plastic cuffs tightened, and he and the other men went rolling across the floor like loose bottles.  
--From "A Life of Adventure and Delight," a short story by Akhil Sharma, A Life of Adventure and Delight, pp. 127-145.  "A Life of Adventure and Delight" was first published in The New Yorker (May 16, 2016). 

We lived frugally.  If somebody was coming to the house, my mother moved the plastic gallon jugs of milk to the front of the refrigerator and filled the other shelves with vegetables from the crisper.  
--From "The Well," a short story by Akhil Sharma, A Life of Adventure and Delight, pp. 185-199.  "The Well" was first published in The Paris Review (Fall 2016). 


This is going to be--no, I don't want to be categorical--this could be the start of a virtuous circle.  My psychologist has told me that I need to say positive things to myself, only I don't want to be too positive, as that might just make things worse.  But I can say this: My life is a mess and I'm going to try to sort it out, starting with the small things.  Then, later, I'll be able to deal with bigger, more complicated things; buying blinds is a lifeline that's been thrown to me from dry land as I flail and flounder in the waves, I muse, and I park the car outside IKEA.
--From "Nice and Mild," a short story by Gunnhild Øyehaug, from her collection Knots, translated from the Norwegian by Kari Dickson (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2017), pp. 3-12.  I first read Øyehaug's story "Two by Two," Knots pp. 142-164, in The Best of McSweeney's, a collection edited by Dave Eggers and Jordan Bass (McSweeney's, 2013).  It was previously included in Issue 35 of the magazine in a section dedicated to Norwegian fiction. 

A poem by Stephen Dunn and short fiction by Rebecca Lee and Etgar Keret

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You shouldn't be surprised that the place 
you always sought, and now have been given, 
carries with it a certain disappointment. . . . 
--From "The Inheritance," a poem by Stephen Dunn, The New Yorker (September 4, 2017), p. 28.

It was the terrine that got to me.  I felt queasy enough that I had to sit in the living room and narrate to my husband what was the brutal list of tasks that would result in a terrine: devein, declaw, decimate the sea and other animals, eventually emulsifying them into a paste which could then be riven with whole vegetables.
--From "Bobcat," a short story by Rebecca Lee, in Bobcat & Other Stories (Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2013), pp. 1-30.  "Bobcat" was originally published as a chapbook with Madras Press, 2010.

This old house, belonging to my friends Lesley and Andy, had been built in 1904 in a neighborhood that pretended it was on solid ground--old, Victorian homes with pillars and porticoes--but if you stepped through the screen door into the garden out back, you could feel the sand under your feet, and despite Lesley's beautiful mazes of trees, you could tell the ocean had been here not long ago, and would be again.
--From "Settlers," a short story by Rebecca Lee, in Bobcat & Other Stories (Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2013), pp. 195-209. 

Dad wouldn't buy me a Bart Simpson doll.  Mum actually said yes, but Dad said I was spoiled.  "Why should we, eh?" he said to Mum.  "Why should we buy him one?  All it takes is one little squeak from him and you jump to attention."  Dad said I had no respect for money, that if I didn't learn it when I was young when would I?  Kids who get Bart Simpson dolls too easily grow up to be louts who steal from kiosks, because they're used to getting whatever they want the easy way.  So instead of a Bart Simpson doll he bought me an ugly china pig with a flat hole in its back, and now I'll grow up to be OK, now I won't be a lout.
--From "Breaking the Pig," a short story by Etgar Keret, translated from the Hebrew by Dalya Bilu, in The Bus Driver Who Wanted to Be God and Other Stories (Riverhead Books, 2015), pp. 27-30.  "Breaking the Pig" was first published in Hebrew in Missing Kissinger (Zmora Bitan, 1994). 

Short fiction by Christopher James, illustrated work by Kelcey Parker Ervick, and a poem by Julia Kolchinsky Dasbach

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Through the phone I heard him whispering something to someone, then climbing down from something, then pulling on some pants, then plodding along, opening a door, stepping out, and closing the door behind him.  I heard him lighting a cigarette, heard him taking the time to enjoy the first puff before he put the phone back to his ear.
          "I'm here," he said.
--From "Canada," a short story by Christopher James, Wigleaf (August 25, 2016). 

My mom killed herself, I told him.  He said that he was sorry, for me, personally, but at the same time he thought my mom had done a good thing.  The world was overpopulated. Somebody had to take a lead on this, or we'd all be in deep shiatsu.  He was sorry for me personally, he said again, but definitely, on an abstract level, what my mom had done was making a difference in a grander scheme of, you know, what needed doing.
--From "Almost," a short story by Christopher James, Wigleaf (March 10, 2013). 

This is the fish my husband bought in the final year of our marriage. 
--From "The Fish," a comic (or an illustrated short story in the vein of a graphic novel) by Kelcey Parker Ervick, Nashville Review (July 28, 2017).

It goes something like, there once was an alcoholic, because
it always starts with drinking, and his wife, because every husband

must come with one . . . 
--From "Jokes Don't Translate Well from Russian," a poem by Julia Kolchinsky Dasbach, Sixth Finch (Summer 2017). 

The Fall 2017 issue of the Apple Valley Review

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The Fall 2017 issue of the Apple Valley Review features short fiction by Dara Passano and Murali Kamma; essays by Lauren Fath; prose poetry by Andrea Jackson; poetry by Grant Clauser, P. Ivan Young, Milla van der Have, Sandra Kolankiewicz, Ken Autrey, Athena Kildegaard, Matthew Murrey, Floyd Cheung, Gail Peck, Stan Sanvel Rubin, and Richard Jones; and a cover photograph from U.S. Route 6 by Nicholas A. Tonelli.   

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 fiction by Garth Greenwell, Hye-young Pyun, and Alan Bennett and a poem by Julie Bruck

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He laughed again when I warned him not to post it on Facebook.  I'll hunt you down, I said, one of the phrases I had used often in my seven years as a teacher, four of them here in Bulgaria, a career whose end we were celebrating that night.  He held up his hands, smiling broadly.  Don't worry, he said, I won't, I just want to remember this forever.
--From "An Evening Out," a short story by Garth Greenwell, The New Yorker (August 21, 2017), pp. 62-69.

Oghi opened his eyes to a faint glimpse of white clothing.  He heard his name: "Oghi.  Oghi."  The voice was soft, kind.  Eight days had passed since his emergency surgery, eight days during which he had slipped in and out of consciousness. 
--From "Caring for Plants," a short story by Hye-young Pyun, translated from the Korean by Sora Kim-Russell, The New Yorker (July 10 & 17, 2017), pp. 64-71.

His paintings were small, suggestions 
of houses, pinpricks of green for trees.
--From "A Marriage," a poem by Julie Bruck, The New Yorker (November 7, 2011), p. 78.

'I gather you're my wife,' said the man in the waiting room.  'I don't think I've had the pleasure.  Might one know your name?'
--From "The Greening of Mrs Donaldson," the first of two stories in a little book called Smut by English dramatist Alan Bennett.  The book, originally published in Great Britain by Faber and Faber Ltd and Profile Books Ltd, was published in the United States by Picador (2012).  The story "The Greening of Mrs Donaldson" was originally published in the London Review of Books (2010).

A poem by Ryan Fox and fiction by Akhil Sharma, Miroslav Penkov, and Anthony Doerr

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You were all over everything. 
I just wanted to read "The Four Quartets."
But there was your handwriting, . . .  
--From "And Both Hands Wash the Face," a poem by Ryan Fox, The New Yorker (May 8, 2017), p. 38.

"Break her arms, break her legs," Lakshman's grandmother would say about her daughter-in-law, "then see how she crawls to her bottle."  What she said made sense.  Lakshman's father refused to beat his wife, though.  "This is America," he said.  "I will go to jail and you will be sitting in India eating warm pakoras." 
--From "You Are Happy?," a short story by Akhil Sharma, The New Yorker (April 17, 2017), pp. 58-63.

Five summers slipped by.  I went to school in the village and in the afternoons I helped Father with the fields.  Father drove an MTZ-50, a tractor made in Minsk.  He'd put me on his lap and make me hold the steering wheel and the steering wheel would shake and twitch in my hands, as the tractor plowed diagonally, leaving terribly distorted lines behind.
        "My arms hurt," I'd say.  "This wheel is too hard."
        "Nose," Father would say, "quit whining.  You're not holding a wheel.  You're holding Life by the throat.  So get your shit together and learn how to choke the bastard, because the bastard already knows how to choke you." 
--From "East of the West," a short story by Miroslav Penkov, The PEN/O'Henry Prize Stories 2012, pp. 157-181.  ("East of the West" was first published in Orion Magazine in May/June 2011).

Tom is born in 1914 in Detroit, a quarter mile from International Salt.  His father is offstage, unaccounted for.  His mother operates a six-room, underinsulated boardinghouse populated with locked doors, behind which drowse the grim possessions of itinerant salt workers: coats the color of mice, tattered mucking boots, aquatints of undressed women, their breasts faded orange.  Every six months a miner is fired or drafted or dies and is replaced by another, so that very early in his life Tom comes to see how the world continually drains itself of young men, leaving behind only objects--empty tobacco pouches, bladeless jackknives, salt-caked trousers--mute, incapable of memory.  
--From "The Deep," a short story by Anthony Doerr, The PEN/O'Henry Prize Stories 2012, pp. 352-370.  ("The Deep" was first published in Zoetrope, Volume 14, Number 3, in Fall 2010).

Poems by Charles Kell, Katha Pollitt, and Lynne Knight

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when I opened his bed-
room door, staring, 
for a second.

He never noticed, 
or woke, if sleeping . . . 
--From "My Father Sick, resting with a Rag Covering his Face," a poem by Charles Kell, Linden Avenue, No. 61 (June 2017).

When I was a child I understood everything
about, for example, futility.  Standing for hours
on the hot asphalt outfield, trudging for balls
I'd ask myself, how many times will I have to perform
this pointless task, and all the others?
--From "What I Understood," a poem by Katha Pollitt, from her collection The Mind-Body Problem (Random House, 2009).  (Thanks to José Angel Araguz for drawing my attention to the poem via this blog post, which includes the poem in full.)

We were near a waterfall when he asked
if I'd marry him.  I said yes
because he was kind to my daughter

and my mistakes of the past few years
had taught me that being smart isn't everything: 
I was smart, and look what I'd done . . . 
--From "The Waterfall," a poem by Lynne Knight, from her collection The Persistence of Longing (Terrapin Books, 2016), p. 25.  "The Waterfall" originally appeared in The Gathering 11.

We broke things.  Glasses, a lead crystal vase, 
the ceramic chicken painted à la portuguaise. 
--From "Survival," a poem by Lynne Knight, from her collection The Persistence of Longing (Terrapin Books, 2016), p. 26.  "Survival" originally appeared in Green Mountains Review.  It also appeared in Poetry Daily (November 10, 2016).

I used to wait at the window for lake-effect snow.
First wind, then then a thin smattering of flakes . . . 
--From "The Snow Couple," a poem by Lynne Knight, from her collection The Persistence of Longing (Terrapin Books, 2016), pp. 27-28.  "The Snow Couple" originally appeared in Marin Poetry Center Anthology.

Poems by Adam Chiles and Darren C. Demaree, and a novel-in-stories by Alice Munro

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MY FATHER'S HEARING AID

seemed lost without his ear, a silenced spigot, 
adrift without a doorway, . . . 
--From "My Father's Hearing Aid," a gorgeous poem by Adam Chiles, on a broadside with artwork by Cheryl Gross, Broadsided Press (June 1, 2017).

I took 
a lot
of time

to think 
about
the epic . . . 
--From "Warm #115," a poem by Darren C. Demaree, Gnarled Oak (November 10, 2016).

"What do you want?" she said softly to Anna.  Instead of answering, Anna called out for Patrick.  When he came she sat up and pulled them both down on the bed, one on each side of her.  She held on to them, and began to sob and shake.  A violently dramatic child, sometimes, a bare blade.

"You don't have to," she said.  "You don't have fights anymore." 
--From "Providence," a short story by Alice Munro, from her collection of interconnected stories about a woman and her stepmother, The Beggar Maid: Stories of Rose and Flo (Vintage, 1977).  "Providence" (pp. 137-155 in the 1991 paperback version of the book) was originally published in Redbook (August 1977).

Fiction by Chris Drangle and Ha Jin, and an essay on DNA editing by Michael Specter

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Soleil was on her way to meet Warren for their first date when she ran out of gas.  The engine shuddered on its last fumes, and she looked down the highway at a long stretch of nothing.  She was alone on the road, save for one pair of headlights drawing closer in the rearview.  She put her hazards on, hoping to coast as long as possible, but the vehicle behind her, a black SUV, raced up to her bumper and stayed there.  High beams filled her mirrors.  She braked and pulled halfway onto the shoulder, and still it loomed close.  Teenage girl, no gas, highway at dusk--she felt her vulnerability like a chill in the air.  But as she rolled to a stop, the SUV swerved and accelerated, finally passing her with a snarl of engine rev.  She didn't want to look but did; two men in the cabin stared back, lit red by the instrument panel.  The driver had a dark beard.
--From "Optimistic People," a short story by Chris Drangle, One Story, Issue 224 (December 31, 2016).

When my roommate moved out, I was worried that Mrs. Chen might increase the rent.  I had been paying three hundred dollars a month for half a room.  If my landlady demanded more, I would have to look for another place.  I liked this colonial house.  In front of it stood an immense weeping cherry tree that attracted birds and gave a bucolic impression, though it was already early summer and the blossoming season had passed.  The house was close to downtown Flushing, and you could hear the buzz of traffic on Main Street.  It was also near where I worked, convenient for everything.  Mrs. Chen took up the first floor; my room was upstairs, where three young women also lived.  My former roommate, an apprentice to a carpenter, had left because the three female tenants were prostitutes and often received clients in the house.  To be honest, I didn't feel comfortable about that either, but I had grown used to the women, and especially liked Huong, a twiggy Vietnamese in her early twenties whose parents had migrated to Cholon from China three decades ago, when Saigon fell and the real estate market there became affordable.  Also, I had just arrived in New York and at times found it miserable to be alone.
--From "The House Behind a Weeping Cherry," a short story by Ha Jin, from his collection A Good Fall (Vintage International, 2009), pp. 195-219.  This story originally appeared in The New Yorker (April 7, 2008) and was later included in The PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories 2009, edited by Laura Furman (Anchor Books, 2009).

Early on an unusually blustery day in June, Kevin Esvelt climbed aboard a ferry at Woods Hole, bound for Nantucket Island.  Esvelt, an assistant professor of biological engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was on his way to present to local health officials a plan for ridding the island of one of its most persistent problems: Lyme disease.  He had been up for much of the night working on his slides, and the fatigue showed.  
--From "Rewriting the Code of Life," an essay about DNA editing by Michael Specter, The New Yorker (January 2, 2017), pp. 34-43.

An essay by Dianne Belfrey and a story collection by Yelizaveta P. Renfro

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He pulled off the tarp to reveal a beautiful wooden sailboat.  I said he must be a sailor, and he replied that, no, he'd never been on a boat before he'd made this one, adding that he'd found a book at a stoop sale which had instructions for how to build a model boat, and thought that it would be fun to try to build a full-sized boat using it as a guide.  I didn't especially care about boats, or about sailing, but I did like stories such as this one.  When I asked him whether it worked, he laughed and looked down and said that he supposed it did, as he'd sailed it on the Hudson.  I blame everything on the boat.  If it hadn't been there, none of the rest would have happened.  I wouldn't have left my husband and run away with the man--I'll call him William--who had built it.  
--From "Adrift," a piece of personal history by Dianne Belfrey, The New Yorker (November 7, 2016), pp. 20-26.  (The story appeared online with the title "Fire and Water: A Brooklyn Love Story.")

(If his life were a video game, he would be a frantic middle-aged gnome, driving a bus with reckless speed, picking up and dropping off passengers, avoiding parked cars, slamming the brakes, punching the gas, rushing home to stop the evil blonde vixen from killing his trees, knocking her on the head with an oversized rubber mallet, hustling back to the bus to stay on schedule, then scrambling home to get the baby out of the crib, to feed the sad brunette who sits in front of a computer with gibberish thought bubbles over her head. . . .)
--From A Catalogue of Everything in the World: Nebraska Stories, a collection by Yelizaveta P. Renfro (Black Lawrence Press, 2010), winner of the St. Lawrence Book Award.  This segment is from the short story "Tree Roots" (pp. 36-49), which first appeared in Blue Mesa Review (Fall 2009).

The Spring 2017 issue of the Apple Valley Review

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The Spring 2017 issue of the Apple Valley Review features short fiction by Siamak Vossoughi and Tom Gresham; an essay by Stephanie Paterson; poetry by Amorak Huey, Karen Schubert, Danielle Hanson, Kim Jacobs-Beck, José Angel Araguz, Mark Luebbers, Katherine Gekker, Joseph Chaney, and Sandra Kohler; and a cover photograph from India by Jorge Royan.  

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. 

We Live in Water by Jess Walter

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Jess Walter's 2013 short story collection, We Live in Water, was published by Harper Perennial.  I'm going to single out two stories from this collection:

I suppose I've hated Portland since I took a pop there.  It was a shame, too, because it was the perfect Portland scam.  A guy in my building was a volunteer recruiter for Greenpeace, and one day when he left his car unlocked I stole his pamphlets and sign-up logs.  I couldn't use that shit in Seattle so I drove to Union Station in Portland, picked out two lost kids who looked like they could be college students, and put them out downtown.   
--From "Helpless Little Things," pp. 69-81 (first published in Playboy, Vol. 56, No. 2, February 2009).

Wade's lawyers said they could get him transferred back to Seattle for community service, but he didn't want some old client seeing him cleaning pigeon shit in Pioneer Square.  His kids wanted nothing to do with him.  And until the divorce was finalized, he didn't even know which house to go to.
        No, he said, he'd just do his community service in Spokane.  
--From "The Wolf and the Wild," pp. 133-146 (first published in McSweeney's, Issue 41).

These two stories stood out to me, but the collection is really strong as a whole.  My other favorites were "Don't Eat Cat" (pp. 85-105), "Wheelbarrow Kings" (pp. 147-161), and the third of a set of three linked stories, "The Brakes" (127-131).  The last piece here, which appeared in The Best of McSweeney's and inspired me to read more of Jess Walter's work, was "Statistical Abstract for My Hometown, Spokane, Washington" (163-177).

Three poems by Lynne Knight, a novel by Samanta Schweblin, and a short story collection by Ha Jin

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We broke things.  Glasses, a lead crystal vase, 
the ceramic chicken painted à la portuguaise.  

It was the longest, hardest winter in a decade.
Snow against the windows, sealing us inside.
--From "Survival," a poem by Lynne Knight, published in Poetry Daily on November 10, 2016, from her collection The Persistence of Longing (Terrapin Books, 2016).  


I loved hearing the guy on the local station
in the small town where I lived for twenty years: 
Here in the foothills of the Adirondacks.
I was trying to become a poet, and I thought
everything I heard could become a poem
if I could figure out how to make use of it, 
the way frontierswomen made use of berries . . . 
--From "The Twenty-Year Workshop," a poem by Lynne Knight, Rattle, Number 50 (Winter 2015).  


I was thinking No.  No, oh no.  Not one more thing.
I was thinking my mother, who sat rigid
in the passenger seat crying, How terrible!
as if we had hit a child not your front bumper, 
would drive me mad, and then there would be 
two of us mad, mother and daughter . . . 
--From "To the Young Man Who Cried Out 'What Were You Thinking?' When I Backed Into His Car," a poem by Lynne Knight, Rattle, Number 32 (Winter 2009).  


It's dark and I can't see.  The sheets are rough, they bunch up under my body.  I can't move, but I'm talking.
          It's the worms.  You have to be patient and wait.  And while we wait, we have to find the exact moment when the worms come into being.
--From Fever Dream, a brief novel by Samanta Schweblin, translated from the Spanish by Megan McDowell (Riverhead Books, 2017).


The moment Hong Chen entered the narrow lane leading to Lilian's house, a bloody rooster landed before her, jumping about and scattering its feathers.  Four little boys ran over with knives and a hatchet in their hands.  "Kill, kill him!" one boy cried, but none of them dared approach the rooster, whose throat was cut half through.
--From "Taking a Husband," a short story by Ha Jin, from his often brutal collection Under the Red Flag (Zoland Books/Steerforth Press, 1999), pp. 132-153.