Ray and his second wife drove into Bakerton on a clear winter morning, in a Ford they’d rented at the Pittsburgh airport. They’d been off the highway for two hours, traveling a road that snaked through mountains, alongside streams and...
Calista Wertheim was, in her time—as most people are, in their times, I suppose—lovely. She had a propensity toward all things batik and slashed her way through life with that mane of frizzled yellow whipping behind her. Garry loved her...
It is Thanksgiving, the great day of dinner, of Dockers and dress shirts and marshmallow-sweetened squash. This year we are forgoing our standard slow graze on the home front to spend the day with my sister and her boyfriend’s family...
My uncle Ezekiel’s body was discovered in a ditch early on Christmas morning, three years ago. Beside him was an empty bottle of cheap whisky; I still remember the red and green label on it, with the inscription: Christian Brothers. Because...
This issue owes its origins to Michael Chabon—though I’m sure he doesn’t know it. Chabon stirred controversy last year by confessing in his introduction to McSweeney’s Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales that he had grown bored with “the...
Graves had been sick for three days when, on the long, straight highway between Mazar and Kunduz, a dark blue truck coming toward them shed its rear wheel in a spray of orange-yellow sparks. The wheel, as though excited by its sudden...
The misunderstandings started on a Wednesday, a not-so-unusual, early-February Wednesday when I was supposed to make dinner, but time had gotten away from me, somehow, again, even though I had so much of it—even so, it was already six o...
