Fiction

Dad, Todd, Mal, and me are sitting in the positions I’ve assigned us, and the Mormon Tabernacle Boring is singing the National Anthem really slowly. After forever, we all put our Orioles caps back on as the Pirates take the field, and it’s showtime. My palms are sweating. Mom comes in. “Uh-oh,” I say, not…

In the days that summer when his mother had to work cleaning the cottages in Dáchenko and Kóslan, Anton was being watched by the Shurins. He was twelve and blind, and his mother feared leaving him alone. He spent his mornings working with Oleg Shurin in the tomato patches along the bluff, and in the…

The setting is a sleepaway camp nestled at the foot of the Green Mountains in Vermont. The camp’s entrance is flanked by twin totem poles stenciled up and down with crudely carved letters that spell the name of the place: indian acres. Drive through the gate, and trails fork out to archery ranges, a dining…

I sought vengeance, and now I dream of forgiveness. Let me explain how that came about. I want to lay it all out. My friends, I hope this last journal of mine will reach you, so you can be with me, with my thoughts, as long as it takes you to read it, and I…

Dear Laird Hunt, It was with great interest that I read the description of your novel and the accompanying biographical material that appeared this weekend in the monthly literary supplement to our otherwise dull and basically pretty crappy county paper. I was so intrigued, in fact, that no sooner had I finished reading it I…

At two o’clock in the morning, no one is to blame. We’d been watching CNN, one scene of disaster leading to the next, the reporter in front of what might have been a new anthrax outbreak giving way to the military analyst in the studio with new developments in Kabul, when William put his hand…

My whole life, it always made me crazy when people weren’t sensible. Dancers, for instance, have the worst eating habits. I can’t begin to say how many anorexic little girls I used to have to hold up onstage, afraid they were going to faint on me any minute. I myself was lean and tight and…

Priscilla’s father comes to visit unannounced and buys her golf shoes, tight Guess? jeans, and a steak, medium rare. She pushes the pink plastic “medium rare” marker into the coin pocket of her jeans and forgets about it until the day after he dies, several months later, when she will find the thing on the…

translated by Jay Rubin Junko was watching television when the phone rang a few minutes before midnight. Keisuke sat in the corner of the room wearing headphones, eyes half-closed, head swinging back and forth as his long fingers flew over the strings of his electric guitar. He was practicing a fast passage and obviously had…