Rule of the Bone by Russell Banks
Russell Banks: Rule of the Bone (HarperCollins, May 1995) , a novel about a homeless, drug-addicted teenager living on the edge of society.
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The Apprentice
Deborah set about making herself useful from the minute she woke up, and most mornings she was first in the household to rise. She pushed off the bedcovers, slipped into her robe, and washed in the bathroom, dressing cautiously and wincing if a zipper or button clanked against the closet door; her bed was in…
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Flood Warning for Warsaw, Late Eighties, No Political Metaphors
Recent downpour, the black streets glisten, the red and white bus dips down like a sail into the runoff pooled near the tram tracks. Fifteen stories above, I drink beer, floating in my own sea—the smell of mushrooms frying in the kitchen—while the dark spike of the Palace of Culture fades into the blackness of…
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The Common by Gail Mazur
Gail Mazur: The Common (Univ. of Chicago), her third collection of poems, of which Lloyd Schwartz comments: ” ‘Dislocated’ in Houston, New Englander Gail Mazur writes that she’s determined to look at her new surroundings ‘with the wise tough eye of exile.’ She succeeds-partly because, like so many of our very best poets, she is…
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Shades
I was fourteen that summer. August brought heat I had never known, and during the dreamlike drought of those days, I saw my father for the first time in my life. The tulip poplars had faded to yellow before September came. There was no rain for weeks, and the people’s faces along Eleventh Street wore…
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The Raptors
I’ve seen them all over the city. After midnight near the consulate, closer to the streetlight than you might expect: a parked car, windows misted, wings for a trademark. And the muffled urgencies from the back seat—someone about to die, perhaps, or be delivered—the sleek silhouette of a woman’s legs lifted and spread behind the…
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The Distinguished Guest by Sue Miller
Sue Miller: The Distinguished Guest (HarperCollins),a novel about a couple who must care for the husband’s mother, an acclaimed author-a situation that forces them all to reconcile with the past.
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Aftermath
The outer Cape in mid-October. A new tilt to the earth and its altered angle to the sun make for a suffusing clarity. Hopper’s light. With the tourists gone, the beaches have been reclaimed by gulls, and the road that traverses the peninsula is bare. At this time of year, delays occur behind school buses….
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Wyn Cooper, All I Wanna Do
All I Wanna Do Poet Wyn Cooper, who teaches writing at Marlboro College in Vermont, is listed as one of the co-songwriters of Sheryl Crow’s hit single “All I Wanna Do,” but the collaboration came about in the most unlikely, serendipitous manner possible. For a year, Crow and a group of musicians met every Tuesday…