I rest my head on a pillow, falling in and out of sleep. Outside the windshield, locusts reflect light like shooting stars as they catch in the car's turbulence. I rouse slowly, watching

"You played sports?" he asks over dinner. They're having baked chicken and baked potatoes. Clean food is how she thinks of it, only a little butter on the potato and no salt. He's pouring ketchup

The hair monster checked out the ass of a handicapped woman. She was standing with her back turned when the hair monster noticed her panty line against her white tights and thought, hey hey hey. He

Roy Kesey's best stories manage to be hilarious and poignant, absurd and intelligent, amusing but still close to the heart. And like all great writers, Roy somehow makes this balancing act look

She was what his father, who had a Betty Grable calendar in the garage, used to call a bleached blonde, and she was kind of daffy-taffy in that old Hollywood way. Face all smooth and creamsicle

The earth is deep brown and peppered with crows. Sorry-looking cows nuzzle the frozen refuge. Two mongrel dogs, skinny, tentative, sniff at my backside. Submerged concrete -- cuboid and rectangular

Gerry let out a loud belch and tried unsuccessfully to focus on Albert.

"I've got to get her back. I miss her so much."

There were tears in Gerry's eyes and Albert felt his stomach clench,

"Are you sure?"

"Of course I'm sure. I'm 43. I'm sure."

"It's a big decision. It's a life."

"Don't you think I know that? I'm Catholic. I know what a life is."

"I should have worn

Jeffrey Brown entered the comics world with three intimate autobiographical graphic novels about failed relationships. Then a comic about a superhero with a giant head. Then one about cats. And

She had death in her hands, in her heart, in the americ tang of her angry sweat: she was jealous of a piece of bread. It was a dark, trunk-thick loaf of Polish bread, and Agnes could think of

I.

Deirdre doesn't talk to Nicole anymore, but she thinks she does. Last winter, six months went by with neither one of them saying anything. Right around Memorial Day, Deirdre asked if she

1. Ionization

In a city where everything feels a bit belated, where the clever ones agonize over looming hindsight, our advertising company accelerated toward modernity, at last, on February

Kitty peeled dead flies off the screen. She squinted in the direction of the boatyard. "No boats today," she muttered to herself.

A late season heat wave had brought a constant haze that made

It is 1:38 pm the day after the event and the best way I can think of to describe the way I feel is: food hangover. I'm dressed in the loosest clothing I own with a throbbing, deep-seated headache

Very soon, a book named Famous Fathers will appear on bookshelves. It's by the astonishing Pia Ehrhardt.

This is very exciting.

I have been a fan of Ehrhardt's subdued, gorgeous fiction for

Leonard Crank is an ass. He's a beer-in-a-can-drinking, White-Owl-cigar-smoking, wife-beater-wearing, greasy-haired slug. He is also my next-door neighbor. As for me, well, I have always been the

"Rita, I know you've slept with one of your cousins," Mom told me this morning at brunch.

My stomach kicked. I stopped chewing but couldn't swallow.

"Here, drink some juice," she said and

He sits in his chair, absently running his fingers through his thinning white hair. She hunches on the sofa, quivering, holding a shredded tissue in one hand and rubbing warmth into her forearm

A ticket to watch Cindy do her striptease cost a dollar and an ice cream.

Terms and conditions of business were:

1) The dollar could be paid as a bill or in loose change, but currency from

The following is an email conversation I had with Ben Greenman, an editor at The New Yorker and the author of Superbad (McSweeney's) andSuperworse (Soft Skull Press). His new book, A Circle Is

1

My father’s ashes clumped on the way to Smith Mountain Lake—it was probably the humidity. We had transferred his ashes from the urn because my mother thought the urn was ostentatious. We had

Dina stood on the edge of the platform. She liked to feel the rush of the subway as it roared past. It was midnight. She was coming from a movie about a woman who liked to photograph strangers.

The next morning, you get a call from the Days Inn Akron South and he tells you he’s been in an accident. He is unhurt but crying into your answering machine, saying that he didn’t want to call you

He smokes overhanded like a soldier. She notices that right away. He's hiding the glowing ember in the cup of his hand just like he's been taught to do. Her grandfather once told her that the

“Matsuzaka’s pitching motion is an elegant haiku, beauty captured in three parts separated by two pauses that he varies from pitch to pitch. He swings his hands over his head, pauses, lowers his

Night game 
 raining on and off 
 seats in right field 
 peanuts, nachos, hot dogs 
souvenir cap 
 in fancy modern non-classic design

Strolling 
 to center field to peer over the