Metamorphica
Zachary Mason
"Ovid walks at twilight through dry rolling hills. A woman is before him, trailing her hands through the tall grasses which smoke wherever her languid touch falls, blackening and writhing and turning to ash. "
Home Archive by category Excerpts (Page 84)
Excerpts
“Book Review”
Valerie Trueblood
"Once I had a lover. None of us said boyfriend or girlfriend the way they do now, like children. We claimed our youth as a final stage, beyond it a void."
Inappropriation
Lexi Freiman
"Set in a verdant pouf of hillside, Leger shines pavlova white against the dirty, eucalyptus green."
Blown
Mark Haskell Smith
"Neal Nathanson thought about drinking his own urine. Isn’t that what you do when you’re out of water? Wasn’t that what the Chilean soccer team did when they crashed into the Andes?"
“Model’s Assistant”
Alissa Nutting
"My best friend, Garla, is a model from somewhere Swedishy; when people try to pin down where she just yells, “Vodka,” or if she’s in a better mood, “Vodka, you know?” which seems like she’s maybe saying she’s Russian, but really she just wants to drink. "
“How to Lose”
Victoria Patterson
"Natalie woke that morning with blood between her thighs and dripping down her legs. Usually she can predict her periods, but her body’s out of whack from the abandoned fertility treatments."
The Mere Wife
Maria Dahvana Headley
"Say it. The beginning and end at once. I'm facedown in a truck bed, getting ready to be dead."
From a Low and Quiet Sea
Donal Ryan
"Let me tell you something about trees. They speak to each other. Just think what they must say. What could a tree have to say to a tree?"
City of Crows
Chris Womersley
"That night, when everyone was asleep, Charlotte could bear it no longer. She slipped from beneath her thin blanket and sat up for a moment to orient herself in the gloom."
Early Work
Andrew Martin
"When Leslie was twenty-five, she lived in New York and, for longer than she should have, dated Todd."
Lala
Jacek Dehnel, Trans. Antonia Lloyd-Jones
"The house in Oliwa already looks different now. And when Granny dies—which will be soon, and I can write that with a tranquil mind, firstly because we’ve long since come to terms with the idea, and secondly she’s never going to read this anyway because she doesn’t read any more—the whole place will change out of all recognition."
Nevada Days
Bernardo Atxaga, Trans. Margaret Jull Costa
"Reno is always silent, even during the day. The casinos are airtight edifices, carpeted inside, and no noise spreads beyond the rooms where the slot machines and the gaming tables stand in serried ranks."
Suicide Club
Rachel Heng
"The cake was a huge, tiered thing, painted with butter cream and decked with tiny red flowers, floating on a glass pedestal in the middle of the crowded room."
The Family Tabor
Cherise Wolas
"Tomorrow evening, Harry Tabor will be anointed Man of the Decade. If this were the 1300s, he would be running for his life to escape savage pogroms in France, Spain, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Belgium, or Bohemia."
Small Country
Gaël Faye (trans. Sarah Ardizzone)
"It was a typical morning. The cockerel was crowing. The dog was scratching behind his ear. The aroma of coffee wafted through the house. The parrot mimicked Papa’s voice. We could hear the sound of a broom scraping the ground in next-door’s yard, and the strains of a radio blaring somewhere in the neighbourhood."
Page 84 of 99
