Diane Oliver had published a handful of fiction pieces, one of which won an O. Henry Prize, had edited her college student newspaper, and was about to graduate from the Iowa Writers Workshop--one of the few Black women to have attended the program--when she was killed in a motorcycle accident in 1966 at the age of just twenty-two. Her promising literary future suddenly cut off, she left behind a short, masterful stack of stories that are now being published in a new collection. The stories--like ... [READ MORE]
NOTEBOOK
Shouting Is at Least Talking
For six years I dated Ian, but only once we broke up did everyone close to me reveal they never liked him anyway. “We didn’t want to tell you,” my mother said. “We?” “Your father never liked him either.” She went quiet. “Ian’s tone was a little off. Do you know what I mean?” “He was good at communicating his needs,” I said. I found myself defending Ian, or at least defending my choice to spend six years with him, after a week of convincing myself I wasn’t right for him. “If you didn’t like ... [READ MORE]
Bleed and Bleed
Christopher was the nicest man I had ever met and so I was engaged to him. We got engaged during his residency and I told people we would get married when he became a doctor, but he never became a doctor he became a physician-scientist at the university researching von Willebrand disease because he thought this way he could help many people at once instead of one at a time. He often told me just how many people in the US alone suffered from von Willebrand disease, but I forgot immediately ... [READ MORE]
House
I don’t climb up the downspout to my window, don’t have to hope it holds. I’ve missed curfew, but I was with Lily; no one is holding their breath. I use the key under the crocodile planter—tangles of rosemary, sage, thyme, a whole world creeping out from inside its jaws—and I take off my shoes, skip the second stair that creaks. Upstairs, my brother, Max, midway through another Adderall-fueled admissions essay, doesn’t look away from his laptop. “You’re hooking up with her,” he says. We’re ... [READ MORE]
Dievas X
There’s no escaping the bath ladies. They come out at night in our small village and limp to my tiny house on Naujoji Street. They knock and I go to open the door. It’s the custom to let everyone in. I’m in northern Lithuania, near the edge of a pine forest with roaming stallions that bite. I left New Jersey to live here. I am polite. The ladies are one hundred years old. I offer them coffee, not tea. They bring a paper bag. I recognize the bag. I’d thrown it out. At midnight the two search ... [READ MORE]
Orbits
The fumes from the super limousine dirtied the snow. The vehicle stretched a full block. She could see her father’s kufi hat duck under the roof as he got inside where ninety-nine other members of his delegation sat looking like packaged food waiting to be microwaved. The limo drove off in a cloud of white smoke, dragging winter behind it. It came to a stop three blocks later before turning the corner and curving out of her vision. What could she do but watch? What was he leaving behind for ... [READ MORE]