1. Topsy, needy This is about an elephant, electrocuted one hundred years ago. Her name was Topsy, and she was famous at a time when people were still amazed by an elephant. Plus she did tricks. She could stand on her back legs, raising her front legs, wearing a gauze tutu. She was a star…
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…
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…
Late night in early winter. The last hour of the long drive home. I tend to the thermostat, keeping the car warm enough for my sleeping family, but not so warm that my focus turns dull. Beyond the chilled glass to my left, green dashboard lights angle up toward the stars. Distance defines our relations….
The time Anne left her husband, she went to France. She spent the first few days in Paris at an inexpensive hotel in the sixth arrondissement on rue Jacob. Her room was small and sparsely furnished; the bathroom, too, was small, the shower produced a tepid trickle. Instead of looking out onto the busy street,…
The Drowned Boy Our ghost was the soul of a standard five. One afternoon, nineteen years before, the boy drowned while swimming in the far dam, up near the ruined, roofless buildings of what people still called Old Goas. (We lived at New Goas, but nobody graced our place with that title anymore.) Back then,…
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