Poetry by Danusha Laméris and Marie Howe, a novel by Elisa Shua Dusapin, nonfiction by Ann Patchett, and short stories by Eudora Welty

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At night, my husband takes it off
puts it on the dresser beside his wallet and keys
laying down, for a moment, the accoutrements of manhood. 
—From "The Watch," a poem by Danusha Laméris, The American Poetry Review, Volume 45, Number 06 (November/December 2016) and Best American Poetry 2017. 

That he wrote it with his hand and folded the paper
and slipped it into the envelope and sealed it with his tongue
and pressed it closed so I might open it with my fingers. 
—From "The Letter, 1968," a poem by Marie Howe, The New Yorker (March 21, 2022), p. 59. 

He arrived bundled up in a winter coat.
          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.
—From Winter in Sokcho, 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 Hiver à Sokcho and is now available in several other languages. The first edition in English in the United Kingdom was published by Daunt Books (2020). 

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.
—From "Flight Plan," an essay by Ann Patchett, in her collection These Precious Days (HarperCollins, 2021). This essay begins on page 91 of the hardcover. 

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.
—From "The Wide Net," a short story by Eudora Welty, in Selected Stories of Eudora Welty , containing all of A Curtain of Green and Other Stories and The Wide Net and Other Stories (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 These Precious Days, "Eudora Welty, an Introduction," pp. 85-90. 

Fiction by Alina Bronsky, Jean Thompson, and Ann Patchett, and two poems about fire

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I'm awoken in the night again by Marja's rooster, Konstantin.  He's like an ersatz husband for Marja.  She raised him, and she pampered and spoiled him even as a chick; now he's full-grown and good for nothing.  Struts around the yard imperiously and leers at me.  His internal clock is messed up, always has been, though I don't think it has anything to do with the radiation.  You can't blame the radiation for every stupid thing in the world.  
--From Baba Dunja's Last Love, a novel by Alina Bronsky, translated from the German by Tim Mohr (Europa Editions, 2016).  Originally published as Baba Dunjas letzte Liebe (Kiepenheuer & Witsch: Köln, Germany, 2015).

My father came home from the war to a household of girls and women.  There was me, my mother, and my sister Carol, born while he was away.  This was 1967, which was early to be coming back from Vietnam.  More people were going there than returning, as is the case in any war.  And the great acceleration, the downhill plunge, was just beginning.  You have to remember none of us knew how anything would turn out.  
--From Who Do You Love, a collection of short stories by Jean Thompson (Harcourt Brace & Company, 1999).  It was published in paperback in 2000 by Simon & Schuster.  This excerpt is from "The Amish," a short story which was first published in American Short Fiction.

I was looking at a poster for Midnight Alarm when the first
        minivan blew up.  Ten minutes after the second explosion
        we heard the sirens, and I knew they didn't sound
the same as in the Garden in 1950, alerting firefighters
        laid out on cots as if asleep to rise and dowse a scaffolding 
        structure painted like a tenement or brownstone.
--From "Fire in the Streets," a poem by Gavin Adair, Mid-American Review, Volume 27, Number 1 (Fall 2006), p. 125.

. . .  Love's insects land on your arm 
& draw a little blood.  Instinctively, you squash them with your palm.
Amazing the seasonal shifts we permit ourselves: It seemed lucky 
when our apartment burned.  My father circumvented the superintendent 
& illegally installed a new invention: the air conditioner, overloading vintage wiring.

Next scene: a thousand people in exile, clutching (what would be the one
possession you'd snatch in a panic?), & we all watched, hypnotized by flames, 
like a scene from a '50s Godzilla movie, the lives of families transformed by my father's
desire for a comfortable summer. . . . 
--From "Unitarian Birds," a poem by Bruce Cohen, Mid-American Review, Volume 28 (Fall 2007), pp. 60-61.

The first time our father brought Andrea to the Dutch House, Sandy, our housekeeper, came to my sister's room and told us to come downstairs.  "Your father has a friend he wants you to meet," she said.
--From The Dutch House, a novel by Ann Patchett (HarperCollins, 2019). 

This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage, a poem by Maria Richardson, and two pieces from McSweeney's

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It is both selfish of me and not
to ask you to stay a little longer. 

The mountains are playing that game
where one of them wears a cloud as a veil

and then the others follow. 
They are forcing us to play. 

They are asking us to dedicate the day
to the books on the bottom shelf. 
...

--From "To You," a poem by Maria Richardson, Best American Poetry blog (January 11, 2014).    

 

The tricky thing about being a writer, or about being any kind of artist, is that in addition to making art you also have to make a living.  My short stories and novels have always filled my life with meaning, but, at least in the first decade of my career, they were no more capable of supporting me than my dog was.  But part of what I love about both novels and dogs is that they are so beautifully oblivious to economic concerns.  We serve them, and in return they thrive.  It isn't their responsibility to figure out where the rent is coming from.  
--From This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage, a collection of essays by Ann Patchett (HarperCollins, 2013). 

Dear Class of 1994,

I regret to announce my resignation as “Most Likely to Succeed.” Nearly twenty years since the senior superlative was announced in our yearbook, it’s clear that I’ve fallen short of your expectations.  . . .

--From "An Open Letter to My 1994 High School Class Regarding My Designation of 'Most Likely to Succeed,'" a piece by Eric Corpus, McSweeney's (January 25, 2013). 

Dear TV Snobs,

TV was invented because we were tired of talking to each other and needed something else to do. You, though, keep trying to have intellectual discussions about politics and the arts while we’re watching Dancing with the Stars. Despite your oddity, we’ve tried not to make fun of you. We learned how wrong it is to judge people by watching special episodes of Family Ties and The Brady Bunch.   . . .

--From "An Open Letter to TV Snobs," a piece by Beverly Petravicius, McSweeney's (August 19, 2011). 

The Hunger Games trilogy and two stories from BASS

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The Hunger Games, Catching Fire, and Mockingjay, novels by Suzanne Collins (Scholastic, 2008, 2009, and 2010, respectively). Not that the books in this trilogy need any additional publicity, but they are remarkable.

"The Ambush," a short story by Donna Tartt, first published in Tin House (Vol. 7, No. 2, Winter 2005/2006) and reprinted in The Best American Short Stories 2006, edited by Ann Patchett and series editor Katrina Kenison (Houghton Mifflin, 2006, pp. 30-42).

"So Much for Artemis," a short story by Patrick Ryan, first published in One Story (No. 53, March 10, 2005) and reprinted in Send Me by Patrick Ryan (Dial, 2006) and in The Best American Short Stories 2006, edited by Ann Patchett and series editor Katrina Kenison (Houghton Mifflin, 2006, pp. 70-90).

A poem by Sierra DeMulder, a short story by Maile Meloy, & a handful of other pieces

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"The Perm," a poem by Sierra DeMulder, Used Furniture Review (January 9, 2012).

"My Particular Tumor," a short story by Josh Denslow, Wigleaf (January 22, 2012).

"Agustín," a short story by Maile Meloy, Ploughshares (Spring 2008), reprinted in her collection Both Ways Is the Only Way I Want It (Riverhead Books, 2009, pp. 169-189).

Truth & Beauty: A Friendship, a memoir by Ann Patchett (HarperCollins, 2004) about her relationship with Lucy Grealy, the author of the memoir Autobiography of a Face (HarperCollins, 2003).

"Wolverine Way," a short story by Ryan Ragan, 971 MENU (December 2011).

"To the Long-Distance Caller Who Keeps Hanging Up," a poem by Jeff Worley, Three Rivers Poetry Journal, reprinted in his collection The Only Time There Is (Mid-List Press, 1995, p. 70).

"So Much Happiness," a poem by Naomi Shihab Nye, from Words Under the Words (The Eighth Mountain Press).

Ann Patchett, Anne Lamott, and Alice Munro

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State of Wonder, a novel by Ann Patchett (Harper, 2011). A surprising, often beautiful book.
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Imperfect Birds, a novel by Anne Lamott (Riverhead Books, 2010).
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Too Much Happiness, a collection of short stories by Alice Munro (first international edition by Vintage Books, 2010; originally published in Canada by Toronto's McClelland & Stewart and then in New York by Alfred A. Knopf, 2009).

From Alice Munro's story "Deep-Holes": Sally stumbled along faster than was easy for her, with the diaper bag and the baby Savanna. She couldn't slow down till she had her sons in sight, saw them trotting along taking sidelong looks into the black chambers, still making exaggerated but discreet noises of horror. She was nearly crying with exhaustion and alarm and some familiar sort of seeping rage.

I'd read several of these stories before--they were all from either The New Yorker or Harper's--but most were new to me. "Too Much Happiness," for example, which closes the collection, is about Sophia Kovalevsky, a nineteenth-century mathematician and novelist.

Bel Canto by Ann Patchett

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Bel Canto, a novel by Ann Patchett (HarperCollins: New York, 2001).