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American Short Fiction

Publishing exquisite fiction since 1991.

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JoAnna Novak

Bread Week

JoAnna Novak
Bread Week

1. Your father calls you train wreck, as in, HEY, wake up, train wreck, bud, you’re falling asleep—beady, bootblack eyes narrowed on you from the Hemingway chair in the basement. Your mother is memorizing two-letter words, your baby boy squeezing the dog’s fur, and gentle, gentle, your wife is saying, practice gentle on the giraffe. I don’t very well like the taste of rubber, says Paul Hollywood––suaven, yeasty fellow in a collar on TV. Your son likes rubber. Rubber rings––Rings of … [Read more...] about Bread Week

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