The latest in our FORTHCOMING series of excerpts from new books
“But when Flora dried off, put on her housecoat and entered the bedroom, she was not prepared for what she saw.”
(fiction)
Category: Fiction
I held my magazines in my lap and looked longingly out the window, believing myself to be a melancholic character in the movie of my life.
(fiction)
Her aunts—a year apart and almost identical in appearance—ticked all the boxes of conventional postcolonial standards of Bangladeshi beauty. They had the “fair and lovely” smooth skin, the black voluminous hair that touched their waists, and eyes with lashes that could put a doe to shame.
(fiction)
The latest in our FORTHCOMING series of excerpts from new books
“I spoke the least of my fears for him then. Although his excesses scared me, I usually said nothing against his inordinate feasts.”
(fiction)
She loved her Oxy, Hydrocodone, and Xanax, the pretty colors and shapes. She sometimes poured them all into her hand. Did she think about it? Of course, some days. It would be so easy—a glass of water, her favorite videos.
(fiction)
He’s standing around and a girl in a red coat makes him think of me. Or a French bulldog, that I would run to pat. Or a scent makes him turn back.
(fiction)
The latest in our FORTHCOMING series of excerpts from new books
“They had traveled through miles and miles of empty land in the dark, a vast empty space between national borders.”
(fiction)
I was certain all was lost, that the curtain had been lifted to expose Double Take Creative for what it truly was: a two-bit operation run by a misty-eyed has-been and his oblivious minion.
(fiction)
The flight attendant checked the row number printed on the overhead compartments, consulted her paper, then looked directly at Mia. “You are a doctor?”
(fiction)
This is when I realize that sunglasses weren’t invented to keep the sun out of your eyes.
(fiction)
She returned home when her village was liberated after six months of occupation. Her house greeted her with a collapsed wall.
(translations)
The latest in our FORTHCOMING series of excerpts from new books
“It was bleak, and I had no idea how we could translate it to a kids’ show about a talking monkey, but I was jazzed.”
The latest in our FORTHCOMING series of excerpts from new books
“Once upon a time, long ago in northern Hungary, the land of the Matyó, a beautiful boy and girl were deeply in love.”
(fiction)
In the weeks and months after the operation, he’d wake from sleep, sounds tooting up from his throat not so much snores as noisy requests for air.
(fiction)
The latest in our FORTHCOMING series of excerpts from new books
“She didn’t think it would last, this quasi-détente or halfhearted madness or whatever it was.”
“I look up to those people who have nothing at all but their own body, which is used to the core: the rickshaw pullers, the sweepers, the mothers in rags…”
(fiction)
“In this story, day zero is when I live, and you die.”
(fiction)
The Friday after Johnny was caught cutting up his Adderall, the AC unit in the teachers’ lounge broke.
(fiction)
He remains in place next to the stove, watching everyone, observing their flaws.
(fiction)
Grigor, as everyone who met him agrees, had been dropped on his head as a baby. Or else nursed on straight vodka.
(fiction)
The latest in our FORTHCOMING series of excerpts from new books
“The next morning, my training began at Achieve English. In a week, I was teaching. I’d never taught anything.”
(fiction)
“Because what she wanted was the kind of radiant glamour that her mother possessed, that she lived and exuded: a rarified air of such pure grace that only a handful of humans might possess it.”
(fiction)
The latest in our FORTHCOMING series of excerpts from new books
“We washed our hands vigorously after reading all these things. We wiped down our doorknobs and our computer keyboards.”
(fiction)
The latest in our FORTHCOMING series of excerpts from new books
“The rooms become increasingly more expensive, as one gets closer to the Abyss.”
(fiction)
I can finally legitimately stroll into a Victoria’s Secret looking for a bra-and-panty set for myself and not pretend to be doing Christmas or birthday shopping for my wife.
(fiction)
The shadows of the bamboo leaves shivered across Cassandra’s face. Even in the moonlight, she looked like she was planning something.
(fiction)
When the train lurches, I move like the world’s clumsiest pole dancer. Are third-trimester pole dancers a thing? No doubt someone’s into that.
(fiction)
They trained me up, taught me how to alpha. Posture, voice, aspect. Then they gave me all the accouterments. Even I was impressed with myself afterward.
(fiction)
Now the extent of my friend’s madness was clear. I couldn’t understand how I’d failed to realize it earlier.
(fiction/translation)
His job was merely to photograph: to catalogue the state of the problem. Save the radiology for radiologists.
(fiction)
Another Chicago Magazine 