Glimmer Train Stories, #86

Literary short stories by established and emerging writers.Jonathan FreibergerPinsky Gets It RightAnd this was probably the only tangible realization that had proved to be of any practical use whatsoever arising from seven years in analysis: that everything could be traced back to one critical event.David GoguenOld TeethI ask her what happened to her box of stuff, and she goes back inside to get it. I'm just trying to be a good guy. But it sounds like we're old hats at this, drinking in the middle of the day together and leaving our things in bars. A real sorry team.Joseph VastanoTwinningShe and I have no one else to talk to about our dead father, from whom we inherited bipolar disorder and a tendency to quit on ourselves. I was luckier than Rae, though.Tracy GuzemanBody of WorkOn a white hot day in August the sea swallowed Trig Carlton's son and spat him out again in a briny, foaming mouthful.Meredith LubyBoxesThree hours ahead of me she makes my father's breakfast. Later, as I crack my own eggs I notice that my hands are beginning to resemble hers. Italian peasant hands with dry knuckles and thick veins. I pull my sweater over my palms to walk to the bus stop.Josh RolnickInterview by Eric WassermanAt dinner with my wife that night before the show, I wrote the names of the stories on a paper napkin, four under New Jersey, four under New York, and, for the first time, I thought: this is it; I have a structure. Of course, it didn't hurt that my wife, who is my best reader and most trusted critic she sometimes seems to know me and my work better than I do thought so too.William GayInterview by Sybil BakerIt seems like if you're writing for an audience and you keep them in mind, the work is going to be more bland, with the rough corners knocked off, and will be more generic. I've always tried to avoid being generic.Abe GaustadBuch and the Snakestretchers"I'll leave you … right here and you can get Greyhound to tow you home." "Then do it, Jimmy. You've been talking that … all the way. Let me out and leave me if you have to."Jennie LinThe UnmooredThe mounted televisions played a segment about a Californian man who had drowned while running around the Del Norte beaches, up by the Oregon border, in a hapless attempt to get some close-ups of the tsunami.Adva LevinStand Clear of the Closing Doors, PleaseWhen you can't resist the urge for the home-cooked flavors of home, find a Lebanese restaurant. Be surprised at the number of Palestinians, Lebanese, Syrians that you meet. You'll need America to be able to talk to each other.William AkinPowerballThe radio station buzzed out an unaccented litany of headlines: more rain in the forecast; the Dow closed at 3008.72; unemployment was steady at 5.3 percent; a seven-year-old local boy was struck by lightning while walking past a tree in his front yard.