Designed by Dana Burns.

Actually, it wasn’t today. And I didn’t make it.

But I’ve wanted I Read A Short Story Today shirts for years, but I never got around to doing so back when this was an active site. But now, in my first post in like seven years, here it is! And it’s not just shirts! There’s mugs! And mouse pads for some reason! I don’t know. I bought myself a green shirt and I love it. Here’s where you can buy one.

My friend Dana designed the design, so all profits go to her. I don’t really understand the pricing system on Teepublic but it seems like if a shirt is $22 then $2 or $3 goes to the seller. Whatever $$ they send me I’ll forward to Dana. Buy the thing if you like it. No pressure.

P.S. I’m still writing about books. I have a monthly preview column in the Philadelphia Inquirer. Here’s a recent one.

The three Munnelly kids are dealing with the new routine after their parents die of cancer.

(from The New Yorker, Jan. 5, 2015)

The landline was mewling again in the kitchen, obliging Pell Munnelly, woke now for good, to climb from the cozy rut of her bed and pad downstairs in bare feet. She skimmed her fingertips along the dulled gray-and-lilac grain of the walls, swatted each light switch she passed to feel less alone.

On the phone was the secretary from her little brother Gerry’s school. The secretary was named Lorna Dawes, a pretty blond sap Pell sometimes saw around town. Another fight, Sap said: Gerry and two lads in the basement locker rooms before first class, an argument escalating to blows, and now Gerry was being detained in Sap’s office until such time as someone could come pick him up.

The receiver was hot against Pell’s ear. There was snow in the back garden, a radiant pelt of the stuff with dark, snub-bodied birds dabbing across it. She lifted a foot from the lino, pressed dorsal and toes into the flannelled warmth of her standing calf.

In a way, stories about children raising each other after the deaths of their parents are, if not dystopian, then maybe a little bit post-apocalyptic. Or something? It’s all about people unsuited to tragedy and self-sufficiency trying to make a go of normal life.

The Munnellys have their issues, but it seems like they’re getting the job done. Sure, Gerry’s getting into fights at school, Pell’s not going to school, and Nick is working himself to the bone trying to provide, and those are all signs that something’s got to give. But, for a post-apocalyptic scenario, where everything they knew has been upended or stolen from them, they’re doing okay. (I never got into Party of Five; was that like this?) I get why the story is how it is — brevity sidesteps the schmaltz hazard — but there could also be more. A novel, maybe. These characters are lovely and I want good things for them.

Read this story here. I’m trying to work my way through all these New Yorkers.

Police arrest the local idiot for the murder of a little girl, but he insists he’s innocent.

(from The New Yorker, March 9, 2015)

Jim Trusdale had a shack on the west side of his father’s gone-to-seed ranch, and that was where he was when Sheriff Barclay and half a dozen deputized townsmen found him, sitting in the one chair by the cold stove, wearing a dirty barn coat and reading an old issue of the Black Hills Pioneer by lantern light. Looking at it, anyway.

Sheriff Barclay stood in the doorway, almost filling it up. He was holding his own lantern. “Come out of there, Jim, and do it with your hands up. I ain’t drawn my pistol and don’t want to.”

Trusdale came out. He still had the newspaper in one of his raised hands. He stood there looking at the sheriff with his flat gray eyes. The sheriff looked back. So did the others, four on horseback and two on the seat of an old buckboard with “Hines Mortuary” printed on the side in faded yellow letters.

“I notice you ain’t asked why we’re here,” Sheriff Barclay said.

“Why are you here, Sheriff?”

“Where is your hat, Jim?”

It took me awhile to get into Stephen King. As a kid I remember thinking Salem’s Lot was a terrible slog; eventually I gave up and started flipping around looking for the dirty/scary parts. As an adult, I was too snobby. King’s prose left little to the imagination, I thought, overexplained every pointless detail. But still I continued on, mostly in audiobook form, because he’s fun as hell. Then I listened to his inspiring and I came to understand him as a writing always improving, always striving. It’s an amazing book.

And I started to notice something different about King’s writing, especially his newer stuff, and especially his shorter stuff. Am I crazy or is he getting better? “A Death” is a tightly written and surprising mystery story. It’s engrossing, and authentic in its frontier-town setting (at least, as far as I know). I’m not grading this on a curve; it’s genuinely great. And still fun as hell. Read it here.

The long, twisted history of Dickie-boy and his family, most of whom ended up buried beneath the crabapple tree.

(from The New Yorker, Jan. 12, 2005)

This happened here in our town. A friend of mine—we were on the cheerleading team together—married a local farmer, and right away they wanted to have a baby, though the doctor said she shouldn’t. She was a bleeder, he said, and if she started he might not be able to stop it. But she didn’t listen. She went ahead and got pregnant, then bled to death during childbirth and was buried out by the farmhouse, under a crabapple tree. It was very sad. I cried for a week. But the baby survived, a pretty little boy; his dad called him Dickie-boy, but I don’t know if that was his real name.

His dad was a hard worker and a nice guy—I went on a movie date with him once when we were young—but he sometimes drank too much and he was hopeless at ordinary household chores and raising babies. So pretty soon he found another wife, either through a dating service or else he picked her up in one of his bars somewhere, because none of us girls knew her. She was a tough, sexy lady, a hooker, maybe. She made no effort to be one of us or to make us like her. I guess she considered us beneath her. We called her the Vamp. She got around, and it was said that she’d taken half the men in town to bed, my own ex included. They all denied it, like cheating husbands do, but, when the subject came up, little shit-eating grins would appear on their faces and their eyes would glaze over as if they were remembering the wild time they’d had.

This is one stylish, wild, spooky story. There’s the hazy, gossipy rural gothic angle — where every character seems to be uniquely screwed up — and then there are these wtf moments I had to re-read a couple times. Dickie-boy’s demise is so insane I actually laughed out loud. I loved this creepazoid story and I bet you will too. Read it here.

P.S. This has nothing to do with the above. One of my favorite comedy writers, Harris Wittels, died recently. Here’s a funny moment from Parks & Rec to remember him by.

A Communist leader is visited by a ghost, shaking his faith in the beliefs of the Party.

(from The New Yorker, Jan. 26, 2015)

Morris Krakower is clever at conspiracy, but intrigue isn’t necessary here. The press is admitted to the sessions; the police have infiltrated their spies, but Morris needn’t fear arrest. Even if he were arrested, it would be no great tragedy. In prison, he could devote his time to reading. He would smuggle out manuscripts to arouse the masses. A few weeks of prison can only enhance the prestige of a Party worker.

The opening bit tells us this is a story within a story, something an author wrote one sleepless night in the country. This tells us the ghost story is aware of at least some layers of its fictionality; but it also adds to the dim dreaminess of the main action. Are we awake or dreaming when Krakower feels that tug on his blanket? We’re reading a story about a story and yet somehow the paranormal parts are extra spooky. Moreover, this story has a few things to say about political and religious polarization. Hardliner Krakower must force himself to dismiss his vision as a dream or abandon everything he believes in.

Singer is no longer alive; ”Inventions” was written in 1965 and found last year among his papers. It was previously only published in Yiddish. You can read it here.

A husband waits in line to buy focaccia from his wife’s favorite baking guru, the eccentric and popular Breadman.

(from The New Yorker, Jan. 19, 2015)

None of them looked at their phones. I did, because I was by myself, and because I lived most of my life at a distance from the things and people I loved. It was also a quality of mine that I invariably became the terminus of any queue I joined.

This story cracked me the hell up. So many snide little lines. I envision the narrator as a bewildered Louis C.K.-George Costanza hybrid, a troubled and snarky everyman obligated to play along with the Breadman’s ridiculous theater just to pick up some bread for his sick wife. The Breadman, meanwhile, isn’t necessarily a villain — just smug as all hell. He’s an artisanal baking genius and charismatic guru (he’s also maybe 5 percent Soup Nazi); you’d be smug too.

You can read this story, or have it read to you, here, and I say go for it. There’s also a decent interview with the author. If I’m going to read 100 short stories this year, as I tell myself I’m aiming to, I’ll need to start chipping away at the stack of New Yorkers on the coffee table. So much overdue homework.

A weary traveler waits for his next train in a bitterly cold room and sees people who are not there.

(from The Uncanny Reader)

Against such interventions of fate as this, reflected Edward Pendlebury, there was truly nothing that the wisest and most farsighted could do; and the small derangement of his plans epitomised the larger derangement which was life.

This is the first time I’ve read anything by Robert Aickman, though I’ve been searching for his stuff for awhile (musicians I respect have sung his praises, or made references, at any rate). I’ve seen a couple of his reissued collections on Amazon, but have yet to run across a copy in a used shop; an original cover appeals to me.

Now that I’ve read “The Waiting Room,” I’m more intrigued than blown away. Where I wanted a twist, there was something more rote, and while some parts were inventive or charming, others were less so. I counted three instances of things “waxing” in this story, though there may have been more, and it seemed conspicuous. And some descriptions sprawled as if we too were Pendlebury, helpless but to wait around and bear witness.

Still, I like the way I think this man thinks. I read this one sentence  several times to unpack its meanings, which became less apparent once I finished: “Those seated upon the table were unmistakably of to-day. Though mostly young, they appeared to be old friends, habituated to trusting one another with the truth.” It’s an interesting thing to observe about apparitions, especially ones who exist but do not act in any meaningful way. I read that sentence again and feel like Morel.

Weird little observations about birds, roads, ribbons and people in a small Texas town.

(from Museum of the Weird)

A language is born: the manner in which the black silk ribbon is tied determines the personality of the girl who ties it. A half-hitch means she is searching for a kind gentleman to walk her to the market. A sheep-shank means she is a scurrilous woman who wishes to entrap a gentleman with kind words. A figure-of-eight means the time has come for sober discussions regarding the future. The children steal a black silk ribbon and tie it round a frog.

This collection of odd snippets is meant to be read as bits from a column in a small Texas newspaper. I doubt these are the real thoughts and columns of the “Harry Austin Clapp” alluded to in the italicized preface to this story (they read like Gray), but it’s worth noting that he was indeed a real person and columnist. The preface — faithfully lifted from this 1937 obit — features a phrase I like for its ability to summarize a hardship while deflecting morbid curiosity: “following an illness of several months.” Google says it’s not an uncommon phrase in certain types of obituaries. Read “Thoughts While Strolling” here.

A woman watches a squirrel die and reads about a girl who ate her own hair.

(from Museum of the Weird)

The squirrel was no longer shaking, June noticed.  Its tiny paw still hovered over its breast but the beast simply stared in through the window.  June understood dramatics, having recently worked at a dinner theatre, but the performance was a little too compelling.  The spirit and knowledge in the eyes was gone, and the squirrel was dead.

Just a funny little convergence of sick, funny things. The drama queen squirrel conking out with its hand on its chest. The story about the girl with Rapunzel Syndrome, eating her own hair until surgeons had to remove a ten-pound-hairball from her stomach so she should eat. And then the end which is a bit ominous, but mostly goofy. Why knows why anybody does anything, I guess. I know I’ve read this story before, but I couldn’t find it anywhere on the site. Read “Death of a Beast” here, if you please.

I read some more Amelia Gray:

“The Darkness” — An armadillo tries to pick up an angry penguin at a bar. — Ray pecked at his highball glass in anger. “Well,” he said, “imagine that, except fifteen times worse. That’s what the darkness was like.” — It’s a kooky little thing, more like a riddle than a joke. You can read it here.

“The Cottage Cheese Diet” — I dunno. Somebody eats cottage cheese and his/her mind wanders. Sometimes the short ones really bug me. Read here.

G., who is dead and obsessed with Susan Sontag, makes a pilgrimage to her childhood home in the desert.

(from Tin House, vol. 16, number 2)

She hated the desert but no matter, the desert had her in her formative years. The desert is irreducible and strange and it is not merry, it is never merry. Not even the baby roadrunners and javelinas know how to play. It is work work work. Hopeless living work. G. pictures her as a little girl — he carries a snapshot of her in his mind — a little girl ferociously unhappy and intense, kicking rocks in the desert.

Actually, I’m not sure G. is dead. We’re told flat-out that he is, but we’re also told soon after he farts that dead people don’t fart, so. There’s a lot I’m not sure of after reading this story. Actually, I read it twice, to try to make sense of G.’s dim, ghostly existence. It’s possible many of the answers I seek could be learned by consulting a Susan Sontag scholar; this story’s strangenesses could very well be references. I saw her speak once, but read very little of her work, and have only a faint understanding and admiration for who she was. As usual, hamfisted Googling has produced only strange hints at a clearer picture.

Hey: Nice to see javelinas making a cameo.