Fiction Archives

They Were Awake

The ladies gathered for one of their potlucks. They brought beautiful dishes. Red cabbage marinated in vinegars and slow-cooked with nutmeg and caraway seed. Salade niçoise with basil and thyme…

Bounty

by Diane Cook,

A dead man twists around one of my Doric columns. I chose these columns for their plainness, their strength. I liked imagining people looking up at my home, its smoky…

To the Corner

by Jess Walter,

Sweet September up in the Boone — twenty past last bell on the first day of school and a pumpkin-colored school bus tools down Boone Street laying middle schoolers along…

The Second Doctor Service

by Daniel Mason,

Sirs — Having read with interest Dr. Pritchard’s recent report of the young woman with paroxysmal amnesia and transformation of personality, as well as Dr. Slayer’s study “On the So-called…

The There There

by Antonya Nelson,

Once, when they were still a family and the boys were mostly grown yet still living at home, they were sitting, the four of them, at their customary seats at…

Coup de Foudre

by Ken Kalfus,

Mariama, you’ll never read this letter: if I sent it, our civil settlement would be invalidated and the district attorney would reopen the criminal case. I have no reason to…

The Toast

by Rebecca Curtis,

Last week I received, via Priority Mail, a card inviting me to a wedding that I’d very much like to attend. After eighteen years of partnership, the card said, Ms.…

The Mighty Shannon

by David Means,

The pain began in my hips, as far as I remember, and then moved to my lower back, and from there to my shoulders and then to my neck — while…

Subject to Search

by Lorrie Moore,

Tom arrived with his suitcase. Its John Kerry sticker did not even say for president, so it seemed as if John Kerry might be the owner or designer of the…

I Can Say Many Nice Things

by Ben Marcus,

Fleming awoke in the dark and his room felt loose, sloshing so badly he gripped the bed. From his window there was nothing but a hallway, and if he craned…

Lovely, Dark, Deep

by Joyce Carol Oates,

Bread Loaf, Vermont August 18, 1951 Here was the first surprise: the great man was much heavier, his body much more solid, than I’d anticipated. You would not have called…

Sic Transit

by T. C. Boyle,

There was a foul odor coming from the house—?the odor, as it turned out, of rotting flesh—?but nobody did anything about it, at least not at first. I was away…

The Two Davises and the Rug

by Lydia Davis,

They were both named Davis, but they were not married to each other and they were not related by blood. They were neighbors, however. They were both indecisive people, or…

The Way Things Are Going

by Lynn Freed,

Gwen was the one who had insisted that Ma and I move to America. Sooner or later, she’d said, it would happen again, it was only a matter of time.…

May I Touch Your Hair?

by Julie Hecht,

A special family lived around the corner from us at our beach house. How were they special? There were three children when most other families had two children. As a…

East Texas Lumber

by Ben Stroud,

Back from lunch, I stood in the early June sun pulling two-by-sixes for somebody else’s load when Mike, the yard manager, came out of the office and yelled, “All right,…

Loyalty

by Charles Baxter,

As much as I love her, I blame Astrid. Astrid told my wife, Corinne, that she could achieve happiness if only she’d leave me. It sounded simple. “Leave that guy,…

Deeper Winter

by Alexander Maksik,

On Monday Luis took Eduardo to watch the Dodgers lose twice to the Padres, and afterward, when they were both a little drunk and wandering around the massive stadium parking…

The Bloodline of the Alkanas

by Cynthia Ozick,

Cyrus Alkana was my father, and if you can recognize this name, you belong to an inconspicuous substratum of humanity — a coterie, if such things can still be said…

The Hidden Person

by Salvatore Scibona,

All her things fit into a canvas bag, and she took it with her everywhere. It weighed about as much as a hen. She kept a pot in it because…

Christmas Party

by Russell Banks,

Harold Bilodeau’s ex-wife, Sheila, remarried, and Harold did not, and though he told people there was a woman down in Saratoga Springs he was seeing on the occasional weekend, he…

This Feels So Real

by Heidi Julavits,

When Ashley told me to go home, I went. Well, not immediately. First I walked to a garden and sat on a bench, or I think it was a garden,…

The ruin of Amalfitano

by Roberto Bolaño,Translated by Natasha Wimmer,

Batman and Robin Have an Altercation

by Stephen King,

Sanderson sees his father twice a week. On Wednesday evenings, after he closes the jewelry store his parents opened long ago, he drives the three miles to Crackerjack Manor and…

Jonas Chan

by Hanna Pylväinen,

The College Borough

by Joshua Cohen,

Fun won

by Karl Taro Greenfeld,

Our raccoon year

by Paul Theroux,

Train

by Alice Munro,

This is a slow train anyway, and it has slowed some more for the curve. Jackson is the only passenger left, and the next stop is about twenty miles ahead.…

Thief