The Story of Arthur Truluv
Elizabeth Berg
“In the six months since the November day that his wife, Nola, was buried, Arthur Moses has been having lunch with her every day.”
Home Archive by category Excerpts (Page 95)
Excerpts
Mother of All Pigs
Malu Halasa
“No matter how often the businesses on either side of the butcher shop have been painted, the cracking asphalt, gravel, dirt, and garbage give the cramped parade of single-story buildings a uniformly grubby appearance. ”
The Lay of Aotrou and Itroun
J.R.R. Tolkein
“In Britain’s land beyond the seas/the wind blows ever through the trees;”
“The Knife Salesman”
Woody Skinner
“Today is not about sales. Here at Cutcorp, we’re interested in establishing long-term relationships. We’re interested in community.”
Future Home of the Living God
Louise Erdrich
“Hide the liquor. All I have to do is fit the bottles and the ammunition into the walls of the house, wherever I’ve added the insulation.”
The Hotel Tito
Ivana Bodrozic (Trans. by Ellen Elias-Bursac)
“I don’t remember much of how it all began. I remember flashes: windows flung wide in our apartment, a stuffy summer afternoon, manic frogs from the Vuka.”
Two Poems by Tongo Eisen-Martin
From His Latest Collection Heaven is All Goodbyes
"I tore the tattoo out of my uncle’s picture and lent it to my friends one left cross at a time."
Beowulf
Translated by Stephen Mitchell
“Then up from the moor, in a veil of mist, Grendel came slouching. He bore God’s wrath.”
“Some Products of the Imagination”
Barry Gifford
“Roy did not realize he was lost until a woman hanging wash on a line in her backyard asked him what he was doing there. ”
Nightmare in Berlin
Hans Fallada (trans. Allan Blunden)
“On 1 September of this pitiless year, 1945, Mr. and Mrs. Doll traveled to Berlin. ”
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.”
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