A college professor’s world is upset when a famous man enrolls in her class.

(from portraits of a few of the people I’ve made cry)

She is sweating and nervous and giddily irritated. Seeing Alex Rice for the first time, she feels her face redden. He smiles at her and nods, and though she has trouble believing it, he seems a little nervous too, or else dazed.

I really liked this story. It reminded me of the time James Franco visited the University of Texas when he was premiering his movie, Sal. During the Q & A, a girl stood up and asked if he might come to UT, which was a little embarrassing. Franco was pretty lovely, though, and I liked Sal, which got bad reviews, but I’m off topic. The story feels incredibly real, and the narrator’s vulnerability is palpable. The reader can put herself in the narrator’s shoes, imagining this man in the front row with all of his wealth and good looks, his bodyguard waiting outside. Teaching is hard enough without having to deal with beautiful famous people trying to be regular people.

This story inhabits a fully-functioning world. I think I just might be a big fan of Sneed, after all. “Alex Rice Inc.” isn’t online, but here’s an interview with the author.

A man has to find a new way to live after the death of his wife.

(from I Want to Show You More)

Those last days it was his job to squirt dropper after dropper of morphine down her throat. The hospice nurses would turn away when he dosed up the medication, or leave the room–avoiding the conversation he was not permitted to begin.

Neil is taking his four children to the lake cottage for the first time after his wife’s death. The children complain and discuss landmarks and I began to wonder what the story was about. I became much more interested when memories from Neil’s past were filtered in; his memories of his wife are engaging and vivid. Quatro’s writing is solid, clear and easy to read.

This story isn’t online but you can read a review of the collection here. And here’s the soundtrack the author made at largehearted boy.

An elderly woman attempts to deliver a letter to the post office.

(from I Want to Show You More)

Sometimes she forgot and said she didn’t know where the sweater came from, and when she said this, it was as true as when she told the story about the dead son. She wasn’t always sure if the thing had actually happened or if it was just something she read in a book. When she told the story, she felt she had not even known the boy in the jungle; she told it without emotion, as if describing a scene from a stage play, the boy who stepped onto the booby trap just an actor who was now carrying on another life somewhere.

This story authentically captures the perspective of an eighty-nine-year-old woman who sets out on a walk to the post office. She is carrying an anti-war letter in her pocket and keeps feeling for it to remind herself of her mission. There are some really beautiful moments here, particularly when the woman thinks of her son: “She felt certain that, were she able to kiss his cheek, she would remember how to feel sadness and grief, love and longing.” This sentence makes me happy to be able to feel–how lucky we are to feel. That being said, I was a little underwhelmed with the story as a whole. I felt like something was missing.

This story was originally published in The Antioch Review. If you have library access, you can read it at JSTOR. Otherwise, you can read a small portion of it here.

A single mother makes a disturbing discovery while snooping in her daughter’s room.

(from If a Stranger Approaches You)

Abigail was a good daughter, an A student, had never been in any trouble…

But Mona also knew how wrong things could go when they went wrong. She’d been a teenager. She’d come dangerously close to the edge of something, herself, at that age.

This is more flash fiction than short story. It’s a brief series of events–a mother snooping, finding something, and confronting her daughter. The story ends with the daughter wailing. I’m still not quite sure what was found. I’m a little underwhelmed by “Mona,” particularly as the first story in a collection. It’s told very simply and there’s no resolution. I want to know what the thing is, at least, and why the daughter is wailing over it. I don’t know. Just a little unsatisfied with this one…

A man gets married so he doesn’t have to spend his nights alone.

(from The Dark Side: Tales of Terror and the Supernatural)

It began last year, in a very strange manner on a damp autumn evening. When my servant had left the room, after I had dined, I asked myself what I was going to do. I walked up and down my room for some time, feeling tired without any reason for it, unable to work and even without energy to read…

Henry-Rene-Albert-Guy de Maupassant, often credited with being the originator of the commercial literary short story, was born on August 5, 1850 in France. He was super prolific. He attempted to kill himself in 1892 and died in Paris the following year. I include the bit about attempting suicide because writers collect information like this. Why do we love to hear about those that killed themselves? Or maybe it’s just me.

Anyhow, this is the first story by Guy de Maupassant that I have ever read, or remember reading, and it feels very modern. It’s creepy and ghostly but also true-to-life. The writing is lovely. I’m not going to say any more about it because it really is just about a man who cannot be alone. Haven’t you ever felt like this?

You should listen to it here. I love this podcast: Bedtime Stories: Classic Tales for Sleepy Grownups by Parker Leventer. She used to do these terrible voices but someone must have told her to stop, and, thankfully, she did.

A man and his Husky are traveling the Yukon Trail on a very cold day.

(from To Build a Fire)

As he turned to go on, he spat speculatively. There was a sharp, explosive crackle that startled him. He spat again. And again, in the air, before it could fall to the snow, the spittle crackled. He knew that at fifty below spittle crackled on the snow, but this spittle had crackled in the air. Undoubtedly it was colder than fifty below—how much colder he did not know. But the temperature did not matter. He was bound for the old claim on the left fork of Henderson Creek, where the boys were already.

I’m sure I read Jack London in high school, though I don’t think I would have appreciated this story then. I’m sure I wouldn’t have. There’s a lot of repetition and it builds really slowly. I also don’t like the way he treats his dog, though I understand that the dog wasn’t a pet or a companion to him.

The man, who is nameless, is walking on a trail that hasn’t been traveled in quite some time. He is fairly new to the country and doesn’t heed the advice of the “old-timers.” I can’t say much more than that without giving something away. This site has all 197 Jack London stories online, apparently, which is pretty cool. You can also find “To Start a Fire” at Bedtime Stories: Classic Tales for Sleepy Grownups, which I love.

A stranger asks a woman to carry a package onto an airplane.

(from If a Stranger Approached You)

As was always the case in airports, there was a small crowd of confused people (the elderly, the poor, some foreigners) standing patiently in a line they didn’t need to stand in, and a woman behind a counter who was waving them away one by one as they approached her with their fully sufficient pieces of paper.

This book of stories was published by Sarabande this month and I feel extremely proud of myself for reading something current. I’ve always been a fan of Kasischke’s poetry, but I’ve never read any of her stories (or novels). I admire the way she doesn’t shy away from writing about race or class. She’s fearless, bold.

I liked this story quite a bit. Kasischke is adequately able to convey the narrator’s state of mind and make me believe that she would do this favor for this stranger.  I don’t want to tell you any more about the story but luckily you can read it here.

Also, it strikes me that nearly all of the stories I’ve reviewed for this site have been by women. Perhaps this is one reason why women are so grossly underrepresented in literary magazines; it may not have anything to do with overt sexism but the fact that the editors of these publications are men and they prefer to read work by men same as I prefer to read work by women. This doesn’t make it okay or anything, but it’s a valid reason, I think. Anyhow, more on this later…

A young girl gets blamed for a plague on her  town.

(from McSweeney’s Quarterly 29)

“And girls,” he says, bending over to examine a line of ants. “Look down here. Closer.” We three crouch, the line of ants weaving between us. They are carting away their dead. One of the ants, unmoving, rests upturned on the back of another, and the other ants follow.

“How come they do that, Daddy?” I ask. “Is it like a funeral?”

“Nobody knows. What do you think?”

“I think maybe they don’t want to leave the other ant behind,” I say. “Maybe he’s important.”

Selma chews on her thumb for a moment, her head cocked. “That ain’t it,” she huffs, spitting out a bit of fingernail. “They’re taking his body home, so’s the rest of them can eat it.”

Daddy stares at her.

I don’t say so, but I was just trying to be pleasant before. Of course they’re going to eat it.

I really liked this story, about a sickness that takes over a town and the towns’ need to blame someone. The voice is clear and engaging, and the dialect, which I tend not to like, works really well. I’m a sucker for a child narrator. I’m also a sucker for plagues and apocalypses.

This story isn’t available online and Hendrix seems to be largely unpublished. Where are you, Laura Hendrix? Find your old copy of McSweeney’s 29. It’s lovely.

A woman can not escape the attention and money of a much older man.

(from portraits of a few of the people I’ve made cry)

She felt that in a way, however, she deserved what she got; if she were allowing herself to call strange men, the circumstances of their meeting would presumably be strange as well. This tendency to court real danger was new, something she would have to monitor closely.

I’ve read some really excellent short stories recently and it has me spoiled. I expect everything I pick up to be amazing. Of course, that’s not fair. “Quality of Life” is a good story but I expected more. I’ve been hearing really positive things about this collection and looked forward to receiving it in the mail. I’ve only read “Quality of Life” so far (which is the first story in the collection and was anthologized in BASS, so presumably it’s one of the collection’s strongest) but I shouldn’t judge yet. I don’t know. I liked it quite a bit. It just doesn’t compare to my recent reads by Holiday Reinhorn or Christie Hodgen or Caitlin Horrocks (scroll down). I feel like I’m discovering all of these brilliant female writers I didn’t know existed and I’m thrilled. And now I expect brilliance from everyone. I want to not waste my time on work that isn’t, well, brilliant. But perhaps today is a day when I just can not be pleased.

I suppose I should tell you a little about it. A woman meets a man named Mr. Fulger, an older man  who sees her infrequently but spoils her with hotel rooms and money and fancy dinners. The man, in return, expects to see her whenever he calls and she is unable to have any real kind of relationship with anyone as a result. I have probably told you too much now.

Anyhow, you should read it and see what you think. Sneed has a new novel out and is getting a ton of good press.

A former alcoholic who works at a bank has a very bad day.

(from Big Cats)

Jose put his arms around my waist. “I want to welcome you, David,” he said. “Your probation period is over. It’s over, man. How does it feel to be a full-time hire?”

I looked down at the top of his head. Jose took a step back. His eyes were bright.

He reached out and took one of my hands and clasped it in both of his. My fingers were sticky from the baby aspirin. “Tell me, David,” he said, and then he was back in my arms, so close to me his words were muffled against my shirt front. “How does it feel?”

I’d never heard of Holiday Reinhorn before but I’ve been reading back issues of literary journals from school. I have a key to the office, you see, and nobody–NOBODY–ever reads the journals that are sent from all over the country. So I have begun to take them and sometimes return them and sometimes bring back others in exchange. The other editors should do the same but they don’t. Sometimes I feel like I’m one of the few people who really LOVES to read. I just love it. And I’ve been finding all sorts of great stories, digging them up for this website. Patrick, thankfully, reads current books that other people are actually reading (thank you, Patrick).

So this story is from an old issue of Ploughshares, but you’d be better off buying her book. Some things I learned about Holiday Reinhorn: she is married to Rainn Wilson from The Office; she got her MFA at Iowa; she’s extremely talented but has only published one book, in 2005.

About this story: the voice is incredibly engaging from the first sentence and never falters. It starts with an earthquake and gets more exciting from there without being over-the-top or unrealistic. I love stories about addicts and people losing their shit and this story really goes for it. It’s awesome. Here is an excerpt. Please read it now.