Christiane’s mother’s last words send her back to the old country in search of answers.

(from The Atlantic Monthly‘s Fiction Issue)

A very long one. Slow at parts, but mostly an exciting and thought-provoking adventure/mystery. Very inventive, although maybe it’s just a twist on a certain movie I never saw but about which I have heard lots; one whose title, were I to mention it, would give away or hint at parts of this story. And I don’t want to do that.
This story was very different from others I’ve read for I Read A Short Story Today because of the dramatic way the un-self-conscious character dealt with startling and unsettling discoveries, always breaking down, falling to her knees, pondering abstracts. This story has its bleak and horrific parts, but it’s neither cynical nor ironic. There’s nothing post-modern about it. In that way, that ambiguous way, it seems sort of classic.

The Mountain Goats, “Alpha Rats Nest”