The note was slipped to me on Wednesday, July 20th, at two minutes before three. I know the exact time because I happened to be staring at my watch, wondering if Dr. V. would be running late today, as she sometimes did, when the double doors burst open, and Peacock Throne walked out. I called…
Jesus began to say unto the multitudes concerning John, What went ye out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken with the wind? . . . But what went ye out for to see? A prophet? Yea, I say unto you, and more than a prophet. —Matthew 11: 7–9 There’s always something sepulchral…
Fanny Howe, Nod, a novel, illustrated by Inger Johanne Grytting: Howe’s bravura new book defies category, presenting a fable in prose, verse, and woodcuts. About two Irish-German-American sisters in Dublin just as World War II is about to begin, the story’s subtext is far-reaching and mythic, as eighteen-year-old Irene falls for her mother’s ex-lover, separating…
On the morning of July 23, 1921, my parents, Cowley and Elizabeth Russet, died in the crash of a zeppelin at the fairgrounds in Fleming Park. They had each paid fifty cents to ride in the gondola, to float and drift over Halifax, the harbor, then back to Fleming Park. That day, I had been…
More in number, five or six at a time perched atop stiff cat- tail tufts or calling from lush caverns in the willow limbs—more on the wing, more flash and blood, more wild song, who seldom travel in numbers bigger than a pair—the red- wings returning this spring to the…
James Alan McPherson, Crabcakes, a memoir: McPherson’s first new book since his 1978 story collection Elbow Room, which won the Pulitzer Prize, Crabcakes artfully describes his departure from his beloved Baltimore in the late seventies to Iowa City, where he continues to teach. The second half of the book recounts his recent trips to Japan,…
A duppy by default, he was drowned, but he came out of the sea. Never dead, he said, though who would believe him? Life raft, he explained, but his employers-a graying pair, nondescript Anglicans who already spoke of the Will of God to describe his disappearance-now spoke of that same Will to describe his appearance….
When Grandma was dying in the rope bed, no one said much. I had pinworms, used to wake up and hunt for them in the sheets. Dad taught me rummy and chopsticks on the piano. Mom took turns with Aunt Sarah wiping Grandma down. Mostly I wasn’t allowed in but I peeked anyhow, seeing how…
Gary Soto, Junior College, poems: Soto’s new collection is a touching and often hilarious account of his coming of age in Fresno, California, where he was a terrible student, graduating from high school with a D average, then attending Fresno City College with the “easiest of majors,” geography. As always, Soto’s memories of his Chicano…
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