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On "Bad Neighbors" by Edward P. Jones
Dana JohnsonEveryone knows Edward P. Jones’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, The Known World. Or at least they should. Regularly, I find myself talking...
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Nailed
Alan CheuseAfter a restless night—one of many in a restless year–when he awoke several times feeling that he was on the verge of something, a cold...
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Shanghai Blues
Jane CiabattariDr. Yu’s office was festooned with dangling models of vertebrae in various sizes, mostly human in scale, some incredibly tiny
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Historic Tree Nurseries
Leopoldine CoreFrances was fifty-nine and Peanut was twenty-five, and because of this they were often distracted by the looks of others in public
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On "Florida" by Mavis Gallant
Lynne TillmanIn any Gallant story, life or reality is curious, daunting, often frustrating, sad or tragic. And, she’s funny, too, in her way
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Rumm Road
Alice Elliott DarkWe didn’t pay attention to the sirens. Our northern New Jersey town is large enough that car accidents, fires, and petty crimes happen every...
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Nip and Tuck and The End of the World
Diane DeSandersI hate it when Mama cries. Her face screws up and she looks at me with those begging eyes, and then it seems like everything might be about to...
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Inland Sea
Stuart DybekHorizon, a clothesline strung between crabapples. A forgotten dress, that far away, bleached invisible by a succession of summer days until a...
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I Am a Knife
Roxane GayMy husband is a hunter.I am a knife.Last deer season, he took me on a hunt with him. At four in the morning, he shook me awake
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Death Be a Hot Fudge Sundae
Merrill Joan GerberThree babies were born to me in five years. It seemed, when I was young, the only worthwhile thing to do, making those sturdy, well-designed pieces...