Stories tagged novel

Blocked

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"Dialogues with strangers can have a thought-provoking, lasting impression on your soul. They have the potential to change you as a person."

The 50th High School Reunion

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They weren't there, so we all began to gossip a little, about them, of course. This was Donald Anderman, who'd been the Prom King, and his date for that dance, the infamous Diane Morgan. Who, as I remembered her, was a little red-faced slut if there ever was one.…

The Reunion

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A small flame of gossip began at one end of the table and began to spread like a wildfire at the first mention of Diane Morgan’s name. “That little red-faced slut stole my boyfriend from me,” I overheard Maryann Blakely saying. “I could have been Prom Que

The Thousandth Day

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She pictured the President leaving the hospital a few days later, hobbling on a cane. Jackie beside him, Caroline and John-John dashing from a waiting limousine. He couldn’t die. She’d looked into his eyes. John F. Kennedy spoke to her.

The Boards

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A midday surprise visit ended his second board: with Reginald in one arm, his foster-mother opened the door on a horrified case worker.

Snow in the Sandias

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If there was a God he was deaf in both ears, blind in both eyes and dumb.

In Between Kerens & Ennis

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(all those lonely boxes stuffed with electric light and sick people)

DRIVING WITH JON

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“There’s no real freedom in this world. But a car and the open road is close enough for government work.”

Marion, Texas

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Marion had decided to stop whenever she came upon Amarillo. It was close to two a.m. when she pulled into the motel parking lot. Momma, read the nametag on the woman at reception. Her face was illuminated by a TV. Her hair curlers were illuminated by the lone desk lamp…

from: The Great San Francisco Poetry Wars

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“Maggie’s sleeping with this big honcho artist at Irvine, Philip Guston.” “You’re kidding. Philip Guston, for real?” Kirk nodded. “She’s his favorite and they’re like doing it and I confronted her about it and she wouldn’t say yes b

from: The Great San Francisco Poetry Wars

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I got on the Greyhound Bus at 11 a.m. and sat by myself staring out the window. I could see the reflection of my own dark beard in the window, a 27 year-old man with a huge poem bursting my heart, gasping to get out into the bright lit-up world out there,

Abortion Mill

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She arranged to have an abortion at a doctor Greene’s office, who practiced out of a converted house on Solano Avenue on the north side of Berkeley. I took her there the day of the procedure. You couldn’t go to a regular hospital to have this kind of thi

The Sham Wedding

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Mary Jo told me to hire somebody to marry us in a ceremony in the living room up at the house on Fairlawn. This was to take place in two days. Her divorce was final, and she had to get married or else it was all over for her child custody. I guess I was

DELILAH, MY WOMAN [1]

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Susan reached forward, slim fingers stretching as if to stroke my face. I froze while she slid the forgotten pencil from behind my ear, the curve of her wrist carved by Canova's chisel and smelling of frankincense and rose.

The Gray (Novel Excerpt)

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Algernon waited in the darkness, and the darkness welcomed him. It clung to him like a blanket as he lounged in his leather seat, clung like the hands of a lover, pressing him comfortably into his great, plush chair, hovering about his mouth like an unspoken…