Nightmare in Berlin
Hans Fallada (trans. Allan Blunden)
“On 1 September of this pitiless year, 1945, Mr. and Mrs. Doll traveled to Berlin. ”
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Excerpts
The Senator’s Children
Nicholas Montemarano
“As soon as Betsy turned the corner, her stomach went nervous, but only when she took in the specifics—news vans blocking the street, lights and cameras in front of the house—did she make a connection between the commotion and her father.”
Three Floors Up
Eshkol Nevo (trans. by Sondra Silverston)
“You’re probably surprised to get this letter. We haven’t spoken in a long time, and who even writes letters today? ”
“This Is an Exercise in Detachment”
Amy Purcell
“We run ugly, me and Valentine. Pit-stained t-shirts, thrift shop track shorts, stretched out tube socks. ”
“Lottery”
Michael Shou-Yung Shum
“Barbara was late to the meeting, and she rushed to it directly from her job at the call center. It was only after she settled down in her metal folding chair next to the two new-comers that she noticed the socks under her slacks were mismatched.”
Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl
Andrea Lawlor
“Paul remembered staking out the Cubbyhole with Tony Pinto because Madonna and Sandra Bernhard had once had a date there in 1987, or kissed, or something.”
“Wick’s End”
Joanna Parypinski
“Bitter cold, it was, as I entered the roadside tavern—a mutinously archaic structure, rudely built, whose splintered wood shrieked with each passing gust of wind and whose hostile atmosphere attracted only the least savory of patrons. ”
Infinite Ground
Martin MacInnes
“He got the call in the night, for some reason. His help would be appreciated going over a case. ”
“¡Dale, Dale, Dale!”
Michael Jaime-Becerra
“Hanging among SpongeBobs and Poké Balls and Princess Elsas, between a giant Snoopy and a mermaid, you find the piñata of Trump.”
It Devours!
Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor
“Not everyone believes in mountains, yet there they are, in plain sight.”
Crimes of the Father
Thomas Keneally
“Sarah was fourteen when she ran an errand to the presbytery, with a message from one of the older nuns to the polished young priest who was curate to the parish priest, himself a monsignor.”
Kompromat
Stanley Johnson
“It was dark when they landed in Khabarovsk after the long flight from St Petersburg. A helicopter waited on the runway to transport them to the camp at the junction of the Amur and Ussuri Rivers.”
Uncertain Glory
Joan Sales, trans. Peter Bush
“When I got up, life seemed worth living again. Only because I have a little corner of this earth all to myself”
North Station
Bae Suah, trans. Deborah Smith
“I liked to talk about dreams. For lovers, Freud was a gypsy of romance and sensual desire, part fortune-teller, part lute-carrying poet, and the manufacturer of a wonder drug. ”
A Natural
Ross Raisin
“A few drivers had slowed to look up at the side of the coach as it circled the roundabout.”
“House Made of Snow”
Matthew Lansburgh
“All evening, Stewart has behaved properly. Of this he is certain. Now it is late though, and night coaxes him into its arms.”
“1-800-Fat-Girl”
Emily Geminder
“This was the summer they entered phone booths and ran out shrieking. ”
The Invisible Life of Euridice Gusmao
Martha Batalha, trans. Eric M.B. Becker
“When he was still very young, Chico thought that all other families were just like his.”
The Iliac Crest
Cristina Rivera Garza, Trans. by Sarah Booker
“Now, after so much time has passed, I am still dwelling on it, incredulous. How is it possible that someone like me had allowed an unknown woman into my house on a stormy night?”
“Gimme Shelter”
Emily Fridlund
“In her adulthood strangers asked, “Where’d you get your accent?” They guessed England, they guessed Sweden, they guessed the South.”
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