A poor, sad-sack loser inadvertently changes the life of a neighborhood girl.

(from American Short Fiction Summer 2009)

There wasn’t much chance for you (or Malinda, or my mother, or Bill, who killed himself a few years after your death) to turn out much differently than you did, the pathetic, the pitiable, the poor. In order to turn out any differently, one had to leave that place. One was, for a time, glad to do it–one was free–free!–one felt oneself weightless. And yet something about being poor stayed with a person and managed to trouble that new person’s life, no matter how far away she traveled.

I picked up some back issues of American Short Fiction at AWP in Boston. I picked up nine back issues, to be exact, and they were heavy but worth it. I’ve never heard of this author before, who has several books out (three, I think). Anyhow, this story, which is long, nearly novella length, really blew me away. It’s so, so good. It’s a story about Elwood LePoer, “dumb as a stick, a sock, a bag of rocks,” and yet he changed the course of the narrator’s life for the better. He did it unwittingly, same as he died, but he did it nevertheless. You can read some of it here.

In other news, American Short Fiction has announced its relaunch, which I’m really excited about. You can expect a new issue out this spring/summer.