Fiction
Fiction
A Bartender’s Guide
Kenny rang the bell and shouted, “Last call! Drink ’em up! You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here!” It had been a good night. He would walk with around $200 in tips and needed every penny of it for his annual trip to Key West. Plus, his girlfriend was always tight
Low Tastes I – John D. MacDonald and Travis McGee
“Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Four shots ripped into my groin and I was off on the greatest adventure of my life!” – Max Shulman, *Sleep ‘Til Noon* Shulman’s parody of Mickey Spillane’s tougher than tough guy style probably represents what most people thought of “detective stories” when I was young. They were considered one of
Lana
Lana plucked a grilled cheese sandwich out of the pan and noticed she had burned one side. She dropped it onto a plate with the burned side down and carried it over to Mark at the kitchen table. “Here you go, babe.” She studied his receding hairline and thought about the night she first met
On Their Own Ground
One night, Gordon Baker dreamed he was standing in his pajamas on the sloping roof of the Williams’ house and staring at the stars. He awoke to actually find himself sliding off the edge of the Williams’ roof. On his way over the edge, he grabbed the rain gutter, which separated from the house but
The Good Old Days
They were both up before dawn and doing chores in the cool silence. Kyle headed over to the hen house to get some eggs and shore up some chicken wire. Evelyn went to the barn to check on the livestock. She milked their two cows while she was there. They returned to the cabin and
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Novels and Collected Works
An Easter Story
Nothing had broken Leo’s way that year. In January, he lost a battle with his mortgage company that cost him his home. His wife left him in February, taking their two children and the family dog with her. She said she was tired of being ignored. He told her he didn’t want to hear about
A Bunch of Felonies
You know, that’s what my sockeyetrist told me. “Catherine,” he said, “you’ve got a person in you, another person besides you, and that person is all the time telling you, ‘Catherine, you’re no good, Catherine, you can’t do thus and that.’ And you are trying to become yourself, but that
Raymond Carver, Remembered
For those who weren’t writing back in the nineteen eighties, it’s hard to imagine what a broad shadow Raymond Carver cast across the writing world. His work, and articles about him, seemed to appear everywhere, including The Paris Review, Atlantic, Poetry, and The New Yorker. In his final year, 1988, he was inducted into the
Uncle Bill
Alice Randall drove along a desolate road amid the soaked barren wheat fields of northern Kansas. Stands of bare trees separated neighboring properties. Every so often, she would spot hunters in orange vests wandering over the dark wet soil. When she reached Masonville, she took a brief tour of the town to see what had
A Quiet Christmas
Scott woke up at 5 a.m. on Christmas morning, threw on some warm clothes, and took his dog Jasper for a long walk in the darkness. Jasper plunged into a few snow drifts along the way, his tail wagging and his breath creating a fine mist in the chill morning air. They played fetch in