The officer shows me a photo of the missing child. “Is this you?” he says. “If it is,” I say, “do I win a prize?” He thinks it’s a joke and he narrows his eyes, but what he can’t see is I’m half-serious. The last time I opened my door for police, they went Gordon Ramsay on my couch cushions and earned me a cash settlement in the low four figures. This officer, with his acne scars, looks more like a Jehovah’s Witness. “Will you please take it?” He rattles the photocopy. I believe it’s … [Read more...] about You Haven’t Won Anything Yet
Fiction
Something to Rage Against: An Interview with James Han Mattson
In his beautiful debut novel, The Lost Prayers of Ricky Graves, James Han Mattson explores the fallout from an act of violence that will seem all too familiar to American readers. Using multiple first-person narrators, Mattson deftly orbits the book's central tragedy, allowing readers a broad view of the event that does much more than explore a killer's motivations. Mattson's characters struggle to make sense of what's taken place in their town, and through multiple voices, multiple lines of … [Read more...] about Something to Rage Against: An Interview with James Han Mattson
Fish Jokes
>°))))><< To start, Anna searches for his name. The search returns 5,881 emails—every single thing he sent her for the thirteen months they worked together. She filters out his work address but his personal Gmail still returns 1,739. Too many to comb through one by one. She can’t search by date; she doesn’t remember the date. If she’s going to find this email, she’s going to have to remember the words he used. She tries “sexy.” But she forgets to type “sexy AND” his name, so the … [Read more...] about Fish Jokes
Menu
We’ve already tried everything. We tell the waitress to bring rolls, wine. Meanwhile we’ll decide what we want to order. This is our favorite restaurant. It’s the only restaurant in town as far as we’re concerned. The atmosphere is exquisite—carpet with hunting scenes, dark wood. The mayor and his cronies sit nearby, tearing apart their steaks by candlelight and spilling juice on their ties. I wave. And there’s the guy Lynn always goes on about, the stiff cowboy type who can’t move his neck. The … [Read more...] about Menu
Flight
I am traveling across the sea, again. Sometimes it seems I have spent more time on water than on land; sometimes, when I am home, I wake up in the middle of the night and am surprised when my old legs meet solid, unswaying ground. Earlier tonight I was dining with strangers and one of them—a young lady, with a hawk’s nose—mentioned Wilson and looked at me, slyly, with a hawk’s intelligence. I did not answer her. My son swooped in and changed the subject, quickly, delicately. He has become my … [Read more...] about Flight
The Sister
A girl named Caroline lived with her twelve brothers in a house on the edge of the woods. The youngest, Philip, was her friend and responsibility. Mother and Father had died years ago of an illness. The brothers talked about how hard it had been to watch, something Caroline couldn’t remember. Each of the brothers had a job. Some wore suits and some wore coveralls. Philip had been born with one eye, due to his mother’s fever during pregnancy. The eye rolled around in his head, searching … [Read more...] about The Sister