“August” picks up the thread from 1959’s “Travellers Must Be Content” (a story which was also collected in The Cost of Living/Going Ashore). Just as time has passed between publications, time has passed for Bonnie and her daughter, Flor, too. The stories read like bookends, all-of-a-piece, but occupying
I’m even more likely to pick up dark and disturbing stories when the sun is beating down. This stems to my “discovery” of Stephen King in a teenaged summer, beginning with Night Shift and Skeleton Crew. There I was: lying on my back in the grass behind the rented
“‘Newborn, they’ve got these huge peckers,’ said Mr. Fenton. ‘I mean, really developed.’” When it comes to writing about Mavis Gallant’s short stories, I often want to begin with their first sentences. Sometimes there is such a swell of emotion at the story’s end, a marvelling at how entire
What we know, from the beginning, is that Linnet Muir is alone. "My father died, then my grandmother; my mother was left, but we did not get on." She concedes her role in this situation. She was probably disagreeable. "I was probably disagreeable with anyone who felt entitled to give
Talk of The Painted Drum (2005), The Plague of Doves (2008) and Shadow Tag (2010) in under 300 words each, with an eye to finishing a project. The Painted Drum is one of Erdrich’s accessible novels (I also recommend The Last Miracles at Little No Horse and The Master Butchers Singing
