The Captives
Debra Jo Immergut
“What happened to me is universal. And I can prove it.”
Home Archive by category Excerpts (Page 86)
Excerpts
“Alfalfa”
Terese Svoboda
“The year I lick so much LSD off stamps I have to use Elmer’s glue to back the twenty-center for a postcard cash request to my mother, that I am alive note at the end of term, is the year of all the 'wine' parties.”
T Singer
Dag Solstad, Trans. by Tiina Nunnally
“Singer suffered from a peculiar sense of shame that didn’t bother him on a daily basis but did pop up occasionally; he would remember some sort of painful misunderstanding that made him stop short, rigid as a post, with a look of despair on his face, which he immediately hid by holding up both hands as he loudly exclaimed: 'No, no!' ”
“The Dancing Bear”
Maxim Loskutoff
“First, she was the sound of a breaking branch. A splintered knucklecrack shattering the quiet of these western Montana woods.”
The Concrete
Daniel Abbott
"Isaac Page rides shotgun in a Chevy Cavalier. Backpack between his feet. The Grand River behind him.”
The Boatbuilder
Daniel Gumbiner
“One day garrett asked Berg to help him drop off Vespucci’s father’s canoe at the local boatbuilder’s shop. They loaded it onto the roof of his truck and drove north along the bay.”
Little Beast
Julie Demers, Trans. by Rhonda Mullins
“ 'You’re not a monster,’ Mother used to say. ‘Just a little beast.’ ”
In the Garden of the Fugitives
Ceridwen Dovey
“I drove from the farm into town this morning for my aerobics class, and became one among a legion of middle-aged women reflected in the mirror behind the instructor. ”
A View of the Empire at Sunset
Caryl Phillips
“Last night, after she had finished the red wine and then discovered where Leslie had hidden the bottle of whisky, she clumsily knocked over an empty glass and watched as it spiraled to the floor and smashed.”
Welcome to Lagos
Chibundu Onuzo
“Evening swept through the Delta: half an hour of mauve before the sky bruised to black. It was Chike Ameobi’s twelfth month as an officer in Bayelsa, twelve months on the barren army base.”
“After the incident with the power washer, I was determined to get my life together.”
White Ibis
Sam Pink
“My girl’s cousin came over. ‘Hey, y’all! Ch’all dewn?’ she said, striding in and setting down her massive key chain.”
It Needs to Look Like We Tried
Todd Robert Petersen
“The Jessup house in Anadarko, Oklahoma, was the last location on our shooting schedule.”
Slave Old Man
Patrick Chamoiseau, Trans. by Linda Coverdale
“The old man ran. He quickly lost his hat, his staff. He ran. Ran without haste.”
“Lover”
Melanie Rae Thon
"Dark in the dark, you come as stones striking glass. The girl you want to wake is awake. I am afraid for you.”
Miss Subways
David Duchovny
“She tried to avert her gaze from any man. She didn’t consider herself beautiful, but she had something some men sometimes liked. Some thing. Some times. Some men. Like she was in on the big joke.”
Rubik
Elizabeth Tan
“It’s Sunday evening and there’s nothing to eat. Elena’s bladeless fan pivots in monochrome silence, the centerpiece of a room that’s untidy in an engineered way, like movie teenage bedrooms.”
“Frank at the End of the World”
Tracy Daugherty
“A raindrop appeared in Bern’s right eye the night before his trip. A mote, a foreign object?”
Adjustment Day
Chuck Palahniuk
“Frankie’s dad told him that sometimes firemen need to burn down a bad house on purpose in order to save a good neighborhood.”
Page 86 of 99
