Fiction by Per Petterson, Howard Norman, Susan Perabo, and Magda Szabó

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Day was slowly breaking.  I had been standing there for more than two hours and hadn't had a single bite.  It annoyed me, but frankly, fish wasn't my favourite dish any more.  Not like it was in the past.  The fish I did catch, I always gave away.  
        As a rule I drove home before the first cars came down the hill towards the bridge, but today I had frittered my time away.  I hadn't even started to pack my bag, and the cars that were coming were classy cars, expensive cars.  I turned my back to the road, my frayed navy blue reefer jacket wrapped tightly round me.  I'd had that jacket ever since I was a boy in Mørk, and only one of the old brass buttons was still intact, and I had a woollen cap on as blue as the jacket, pulled down over my ears, so from behind I could have been anyone.
        I tied the bait rig to the railing, turned round and crouched down to take a cigarette from the pack I had in my bag.  I really ought to stop smoking, I had started to cough in the mornings, it was a bad sign, and then a car stopped right in front of me with the window on the driver's side level with my face.  I had the cigarette between my lips, and as I stood up, I lit it with a match behind my cupped hand.  I always used matches, I didn't like that plastic.
        It was a grey Mercedes, brand new, and the paintwork was shiny as skin can be shiny at certain times, in certain situations.  Then the window slid down without a sound.
        'It's Jim, isn't it,' he said.
        I knew him at once.  It was Tommy.  His hair had thinned and was greying.  But the horizontal scar above his left eye was still evident, white, luminous silver.  He was wearing a purple coat buttoned to the throat.  It didn't look cheap.  He was the same, and yet he looked like Jon Voigt in Enemy of the State.  Leather gloves.  Blue eyes.  Slightly out of focus.  
        'I guess it is,' I said.
        'Well, I'll be damned.  How long has it been.  Twenty-five years.  Thirty.'  And I said: 
        'About that.  A bit more.'
        He smiled.  'We each went our separate ways that time, didn't we.'  He said it neither this nor that way.
        'That's true,' I said.  He smiled, he was happy to see me, or so it seemed.  
--From I Refuse, a novel by Per Petterson, translated from the Norwegian by Don Bartlett (Graywolf Press, 2015). First published in Norwegian as Jeg nekter (Forlaget Oktober: Oslo, Norway, 2012).  First published in English in London, England (Harvill Secker, Random House, 2014).

My name is Fabian Vas.  I live in Witless Bay, Newfoundland.  You would not have heard of me.  Obscurity is not necessarily failure, though; I am a bird artist, and have more or less made a living at it.  Yet I murdered the lighthouse keeper, Botho August, and that is an equal part of how I think of myself.
         I discovered my gift for drawing and painting birds early on.  I should better say that my mother saw that someone had filled in the margins of my third-form primer with the sketches of wings, talons, and heads of local birds.  "I though this primer was brand-new," she said.  "But it's full of these bird drawings.  Well, somebody has talent."  After a night's sleep she realized that the pencil work was mine and was what I had been concentrating on during my school lessons.  Actually she seemed quite pleased, and at breakfast the following morning said, "Awfully nice to learn something so unmistakable about one's offspring."  She tore out a page full of heads of gulls and ospreys, wrote, "October 28, 1900," on it, and nailed it to the kitchen door. 
--From The Bird Artist, a novel by Howard Norman (hardcover was published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1994; softcover by Picador, 1995).

My mother was thrilled to be dying of brain cancer after a lifetime of smoking. She had dodged the bullet of lung cancer after all, she triumphantly announced to me on the phone that summer afternoon. All those years my brothers and I had hassled her, lectured her, begged her, berated her (“Don’t you want to see your grandchildren graduate from college?”)—and for what? Her lungs were fine!
--From Why They Run the Way They Do, a short story collection by Susan Perabo (Simon & Schuster, 2016).  This excerpt is from "Indulgence," pp. 155-171 in the paperback version of the book.  "Indulgence," a short story by Susan Perabo, was first published in One Story, Issue Number 178 (May 3, 2013).

I seldom dream.  When I do, I wake with a start, bathed in sweat.  Then I lie back, waiting for my frantic heart to slow, and reflect on the overwhelming power of night's spell.  As a child and young woman, I had no dreams, either good or bad, but in old age I am confronted repeatedly with horrors from my past, all the more dismaying because compressed and compacted, and more terrible than anything I have lived through.  In fact nothing has ever happened to me of the kind that now drags me screaming from my sleep.
        My dreams are always the same, down to the finest detail, a vision that returns again and again.  In this never-changing dream I am standing in our entrance hall at the foot of the stairs, facing the steel frame and reinforced shatterproof window of the outer door, and I am struggling to turn the lock.  Outside in the street is an ambulance.  Through the glass I can make out the shimmering silhouettes of the paramedics, distorted to unnatural size, their swollen faces haloed like moons.  The key turns, but my efforts are in vain: I cannot open the door.  But I must let the rescuers in, or they'll be too late to save my patient.
--From The Door, a novel by Magda Szabó, translated from the Hungarian by Len Rix (New York Review Books, 2015).  It was originally published in Hungarian as Az ajtó (Magvető, 1987); this English translation was first published in Great Britain (Harvill Secker, 2005).

A hopeful poem for Spring 2020 and the last day of Poetry Month

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He drives up in a Pac Bell truck,
ready to fix my phone
though 611 said my instrument
was at fault, my twenty dollar phone.
He bellies up to the outside wall,
hugging the paint to avoid
the spines of an ancient cactus
and the kitchen window, swung open
to air out the Saturday morning smell
of fried potato and onions.
Finding no problem in the gray box
that splits the wires coming into the house,
he climbs a ladder he leans
against the brick wall that separates us
from looming apartment buildings
and swings up the spiked pole
into Ponderosa pine branches
where a limb weighs down the black wire
bringing electric pulses to me. . . .

—From “Pacific Bell Comes Calling,” a poem by Trina Gaynon. Read the full poem in the Spring 2020 issue of the Apple Valley Review (Volume 15, Number 1).

Find this and other poems from the Apple Valley Review: https://www.applevalleyreview.com

A few poems for sheltering in place during Poetry Month

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. . .  And
I am an enemy
of change, as
you know.  All
the things I
embrace as new
are in
fact old things,
re-released: swimming,
the sensation of
being dirty in
body and mind
summer as a
time to do
nothing and make
no money.  Prayer
as a last re-
sort.  Pleasure
as a means,
and then a
means again
with no ends
in sight. . . .

--From "Peanut Butter," a poem by Eileen Myles, from her book Not Me (Semiotext(e), 1991).  This poem was recently featured on the Ploughshares blog in a post called "Three Poems of Ordinary Exuberance for Uncertain Times," an essay by Ariel Katz (March 18, 2020). 


I have this, and this isn’t a mouth
       full of the names of odd flowers

I’ve grown in secret.
       I know none of these by name

but have this garden now,
       and pastel somethings bloom

near the others and others.
       I have this trowel, these overalls,

this ridiculous hat now.
       This isn’t a lung full of air.

--From "I Have This Way of Being," a poem by Jamaal May (2016).

An older woman in full traditional Palestinian embroidered dress, just
like my grandma wore, was crumpled to the floor, wailing.  "Help,"
said the flight agent.  "Talk to her.  What is her problem?  We
told her the flight was going to be late and she did this."

I stooped to put my arm around the woman and spoke haltingly.
"Shu-dow-a, Shu-bid-uck Habibti?  Stani schway, Min fadlick, Shu-bit-
se-wee?"  The minute she heard any words she knew, however poorly
used, she stopped crying.  She thought the flight had been cancelled
entirely.  She needed to be in El Paso for major medical treatment the
next day.  I said, "No, we’re fine, you'll get there, just later, who is
picking you up?  Let’s call him."

--From "Gate A-4," a poem by Naomi Shihab Nye, from her children's collection Honeybee (HarperCollins, 2008), pp. 162-164.


A man leaves the world 

and the streets he lived on 

grow a little shorter. 

One more window dark 

in this city, the figs on his branches 

will soften for birds.

--From "Streets," a poem by Naomi Shihab Nye, from her book Words Under the Words (Eighth Mountain Press, 1995).

It is December and we must be brave.

The ambulance’s rose of light
blooming against the window.
Its single siren-cry: Help me.
A silk-red shadow unbolting like water
through the orchard of her thigh.

--From "Manhattan Is a Lenape Word," a poem by Natalie Diaz, from her collection Postcolonial Love Poem (Graywolf Press, 2020).


First having read the book of myths,
and loaded the camera,
and checked the edge of the knife-blade,
I put on
the body-armor of black rubber
the absurd flippers
the grave and awkward mask.

--From "Diving into the Wreck," a poem by Adrienne Rich, from her book Diving into the Wreck: Poems 1971-1972 (W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1973).

The Spring 2020 issue of the Apple Valley Review

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The Spring 2020 issue of the Apple Valley Review features poetry by Francesca Gargallo (translated from the Spanish by Dana Delibovi), Carol V. Davis, Robert L. Penick, Eric Stiefel, Trina Gaynon, Stan Sanvel Rubin, Débora Benacot (translated from the Spanish by Margaret Young), and Gail Peck; short fiction by Timothy Kenny; and a cover photograph from Brooklyn by Solomon Laker.  

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. 

Nonfiction by John Carreyrou, a graphic novel by Benjamin Reiss, and Jenny Offill's new novel

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Bradley had worked with a lot of sophisticated medical technologies in the army, so he was curious to see the Theranos system in action.  However, he was surprised to learn that Theranos wasn't planning on putting any of its devices in the Pleasanton clinic.  Instead, it had stationed two phlebotomists there to draw blood, and the samples they collected were couriered across San Francisco Bay to Palo Alto for testing.  He also noticed that the phlebotomists were drawing blood from every employee twice, once with a lancet applied to the index finger and a second time the old-fashioned way with a hypodermic needle inserted in the arm.  Why the need for venipunctures--the medical term for needle draws--if the Theranos finger-stick technology was fully developed and ready to be rolled out to consumers, he wondered.   
--From Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup, a nonfiction account of the rise and fall of Theranos, by John Carreyrou (Alfred A. Knopf, 2018).  Carreyrou was a member of The Wall Street Journal's investigative reporting team when he initially broke this story.  The quote above is from page 112 of the hardcover edition of the book.

When I was in Japan, everyone kept asking me why I was there.  When I came back, everyone kept asking me what I did there for so long.  Always answering the same questions gets annoying.  
--From Super Tokyoland, a graphic novel by Benjamin Reiss (Top Shelf, 2017).  The first version of the graphic novel, called Tokyoland, was published in France in 2009.  The revised and extended version, Super Tokyoland, was first published in 2015, and was translated and published in English in 2017.  The book is also available for purchase from Penguin Random House.

My brother told me once that he missed drugs because they made the world stop calling to him.  Fair enough, I said.  We were at the supermarket.  All around us things tried to announce their true nature.  But their radiance was faint and fainter still beneath the terrible music.  
--From Weather, a novel by Jenny Offill (Alfred A. Knopf, 2020).

Short stories by Brian Crawford, Richard Berry, Emma Hunsinger, and Kim Chi-wŏn

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A month later, someone started making small withdrawals from his account, from ATMs up and down Nevada.  The amounts were not material, and anyway it was his own money.  His wife had insisted they each keep separate financial lives.  "You never know what'll happen," she'd said, "and I always want to be able to make it on my own."

--From "Withdrawals," a story by Brian Crawford, Vestal Review, Issue 56 (January 2020).

A woman walks past my stall every afternoon in this spot at 4:15.

--From "The Crayfish Seller," a story by Richard Berry, 100 Word Story (July 2019).

1. Start with three shapes to form the neck, shoulders, and rump.
--From "How to Draw a Horse," an illustrated story by Emma Hunsinger, The New Yorker (December 30, 2019), pp. 40-49.  (Online it is in the section called Culture Desk.  In print, it was Sketchbook by Emma Hunsinger / May 30, 2019.  This graphic story appeared in the Cartoon Takeover issue.)

The young man usually dropped by the woman's West Side wine and spirit shop around 5 p.m. for a bottle of Almaden Chablis.  He came with the throng of rush-hour customers, and she didn't yet know him as one of the regulars.  She was still learning such basics as the shelf location and prices of the items, and although the man brought the same wine to the counter every time, she invariably had to check the price and look up the tax.  Some customers who stuck to one brand would tell her the price, but not this one.  
--From "Almaden," a short story by Kim Chi-wŏn.  It was published in the anthology The Future of Silence: Fiction by Korean Women, which was translated and edited by Bruce and Ju-Chan Fulton (Zephyr Press, 2016), pp. 25-32.

"Almaden" was my favorite story from this collection, but I particularly liked two other stories from The Future of Silence as well: "Dear Distant Love" by Sŏ Yŏng-ŭn (pp. 33-56) and "Identical Apartments" by Pak Wan-sŏ (pp. 57-78).

Poems by David Huddle and Jessica Greenbaum and novels by Jenny Offill and Wioletta Greg

~
When her Alzheimer's was just beginning, 
my mother had a suitor, a farmer
whose wife had died after a long illness, . . .  
--From "Aloft," a poem by David Huddle, The Southern Review, Volume 44:4 (Autumn 2008), pp. 780-782.  This poem was later reprinted in Blacksnake at the Family Reunion, a book of poems by David Huddle (LSU Press, 2012).

Driving into my old city yesterday
for the first visit in decades
every street sign whispered a story
from my only great war
my move here as a lone
21-year old, when by day three
my map of the city
lay shredded from reuse
and humidity and from
shaking it in hopes it would
rearrange into something familiar—
--From "Four a.m. and 40 Years Later, from an Eighteenth Floor Balcony, Downtown," a poem by Jessica Greenbaum, Plume, Issue 101 (January 2020).

One day God called the bat to him and gave him a basket to carry to the moon.  The basket was filled with darkness, but God didn't tell him what it was. . . .  The bat grew tired and stopped for a rest.  He put down the basket and went off to find something to eat.  While he was gone, other animals came along. . . .  The dogs and wolves tried to pull [the darkness] out and play with it, but it slipped away between their teeth and slithered off.  Just then, the bat returned.  He opened the basket and found it empty.  The other animals disappeared into the night.  The bat flew off to try to recapture the darkness.  He could see it everywhere, but he couldn't fit it back inside his basket, no matter how hard he tried.  And this is why the bat sleeps all day and flies all night.  He's still trying to catch the dark.
        "Which part of the story was the part about Africa?" I wanted to know.  I had asked my mother to tell me about Africa and instead she had told me about the bat.  "It's all about Africa," my mother said, frowning.  "Everything except the part about God."   
--From Last Things, a novel by Jenny Offill (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1999; Vintage Books/Random House, 2015).

I am nauseated by the odor of musty rugged jackets, wool, the tonics with which the women spritz their hair.  Sitting on my suitcase I stare out the window, where the sunlight disappears into the poplars like when water closes over a cuttlefish.  
        Suddenly I think I see, standing up near the front of the bus, my old acquaintance Kamil, with whom I fell in love over the summer and then lost contact.  That has to be him, I think, thrilled, squeezing myself and my suitcase towards him.
        "Is it really you?" I ask, excited, grasping his leather jacket.  
        "Course it's me, honeycakes," responds this stranger as he eyes me up and down.
--From Accommodations, a novel by Wioletta Grzegorzewska (writing as Wioletta Greg), translated from the Polish by Jennifer Croft (Transit Books, 2019). Originally published as Stancje (W.A.B.: Poland, 2017).  This is a follow-up to Swallowing Mercury, which is a beautiful, poetic little novel, also from Transit Books.