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Mario Benedetti, “The Night of the Ugly Ones”
Two ugly people hook up. (from Blood Pact and Other Stories) Our chance is to climb into the night, the deep of night, total darkness. Do you follow me? No. You’ve got to understand–total...
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Barb Johnson, “St. Luis of Palmyra”
Luis wants to win the sixth-grade science fair and pass catechism. (from More of This World or Maybe Another) Junior’s scratching his nuts, following Luis with his eyes. His head jerks on its neck...
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Susan Steinberg, “Isla”
A girl goes out to dinner with her father and learns some life lessons. (from The End of Free Love) 15. There are things your old pop knows. 16. Never gamble. 17. Never smoke. 18. Sometimes we cheat....
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Robert Bingham, “I’m Talking about Another House”
Max and Amanda go to Chicago for a wedding during a heat wave. (from Pure Slaughter Value) He had time yet, and so he walked down Michigan Avenue until he ran into the hotel his great-uncle had built....
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Susan Steinberg, “To Sit, Unmoving”
A girl and her brother move in with their father after their mother’s death. (from Hydroplane) And there was a night my brother and I walked home from the city park. The street was unlit and we were...
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Antonya Nelson, “Literally”
A day of minor inconveniences reminds a family that no day could ever be as bad as the worst one. (from The New Yorker) Bonita’s shoulders heaved. Tears: they did not require translation. How...
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Joy Williams, “Escapes”
A mother and daughter drive to Portland to see a magician. (from Escapes) My mother went to the phone and ordered two tickets, and not many days after that, we were in our car driving to Portland for...
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Alethea Black, “That of Which We Cannot Speak”
Bradley goes to a party full of strangers and makes a connection with a (temporarily) mute woman. (from I Knew You’d Be Lovely) Half an hour later, the air was hotter, the music louder, and the room...
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Joy Williams, “The Skater”
Annie and Tom and Molly are looking at boarding schools. Molly’s sister, Martha, has recently died after choking on a piece of bread. (from Escapes) Molly can’t see her parents’ faces. She can’t...
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Dorothy Allison, “River of Names”
A woman who can’t forget her past struggles to live in the present. (from The Vintage Book of Contemporary American Short Stories) We were so many we were without number and, like tadpoles, if there...
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Alethea Black, “The Only Way Out Is Through”
Fetterman takes his teenage son on a camping trip. (from I Knew You’d be Lovely) “Jesus!” said Fetterman, swerving just in time. A deer was standing in the middle of the road. In the backseat, Derek...
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Kevin Wilson, “The Horror We Made”
A slumber party turns into a horror film. (from American Short Fiction, Fall 2013) These girls, and they always thought of themselves collectively, like a dues-paying club, weren’t athletic or...
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Theodore Wheeler, “Welcome Home”
Jim Scott returns home from Iraq to find his dog in bad shape and the termite-eaten stump where he left it. (from Best New American Voices 2009, edited by Mary Gaitskill) Jim had been safe, perhaps...
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Adam Wilson, “Soft Thunder”
Ben and his buddies Roland, Alex, and Sam all sleep with Kendra, but “sleep isn’t the right word.” (from What’s Important Is Feeling) The garage door opened to the street. We sat in lawn chairs,...
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Jack Pendarvis, “Lumber Land”
Dudley Durden, aged 50, and his boss, Lombard Cuff III, go on a stakeout. (from Your Body Is Changing) Dud was sitting in his house, thinking about how embarrassing it would be to die there. He...
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Lisa Glatt, “Ludlow”
Darlene Tate is newly married and newly pregnant, but a psychic has predicted that her fetus will expire at any moment. (from The Apple’s Bruise) Now that I’m twenty-nine I’m becoming a new kind of...
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Kenneth Calhoun, “Primal Scenes”
A twelve-year-old boy moves with his family to Guadalajara after his father is caught having an affair with a student; sexy stuff and trouble ensues. (from Tin House 60, Summer 2014) In America we...
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Joy Williams, “The Little Winter”
Gloria, a thirty-five-year-old woman dying of cancer, goes to visit her friend, Jean, and Jean’s strange daughter, and then sort-of kidnaps the girl. (from Escapes) There was something truly terrifying...
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Jim Gavin, “The Copy Chief”
After a decade spent surfing and working at a gas station, Eddie becomes a newspaperman. (from Zoetrope: All-Story, Summer 2014) I had a sublet in Mar Vista. My roommate, Brett, was creepy and docile...
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Alice Munro, “Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage”
Johanna leaves town with a new dress and some stolen furniture to begin a life in the middle of nowhere with a man who isn’t expecting her. (from Zoetrope: All-Story, Summer 2014) The station agent...
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