Featured Stories

Quiet Town

Quiet Town: Short story by Jason GurleyThe recently released 6th Assessment Report by the UN Climate Change Panel presents a pessimistic assessment of the world’s progress in controlling global warming. That makes this an appropriate time to feature science fiction writer Jason Gurley’s Quiet Town, a grim picture of what may be the future of low-lying townships along world coastlines. Bev, her son Benji, and annoying neighbor Ezze are among the few remaining residents of a small town in which the rising ocean has just breached the sea wall. Experts had originally predicted that this would not happen for fifty years: it had taken five!

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The Pardon of Becky Day

The Pardon of Becky Day: Short story by John Fox, Jr.A motif of this classic Western by John Fox, Jr. could well be the scheming nature of women. A neighbor misled the community as to Becky’s virtue to win her boyfriend Jim’s heart; both women manipulate the men around them to maintain their “honor”; a missionary uses the threat of a deathbed curse to force the reluctant neighbor to seek Becky’s forgiveness; and, based on the smile on Becky’s face when she dies, her words of forgiveness may have been feigned to make sure that she will “git thar” [where Jim is] first. Themes: deception, hate, lawless violence, forgiveness, superstition.

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A Guide to Berlin

A Guide to Berlin: Short story by Vladimir NabokovThis early story by Vladimir Nabokov is not about places to see in Berlin, but rather the narrator’s observations of some everyday aspects of city life. Through a series of vignettes he describes pipes left on the footpath, the streetcar system, people he sees working on the streets, the city zoo and the pub in which he is drinking with a friend. Themes include the relationship between time and memory (how some things we experience today will become “future recollections”), and the artist’s duty to record his/her experiences in detail for the benefit of future generations.

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Midnight Mass

Midnight Mass: Short story by Joaquim Maria Machado de AssisThis story, hailed as one of Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis’s best, involves a seemingly innocent but sexually charged conversation between a seventeen-year-old boy and the thirty-year-old wife of his landlord. The boy is staying up to attend midnight mass, the woman’s husband is away for the night with his mistress, and the woman, who has not slept, appears in her nightgown. Interpretation of the conversation is made all the more difficult because it is related by the boy many years afterwards. Themes include coming of age (sexual stirrings) and ambiguity (as to what might be implied or is unsaid).

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We Are All One

We Are All One: Chinese Folktale from Laurence YepIn this Chinese folktale retold by Laurence Yep, a rich merchant offers a large reward to anyone who can cure his painful eye disease. A poor candy peddler walks deep into a forest in search of a magical herb his mother had told him about. With help from a magical centipede and thousands of ants he becomes “One” with, he returns home with something better, earns the reward and lives happily ever after. The titular theme, that we are all one, conveyed an important social message to early Chinese immigrants in America.

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The Jungle

The Jungle: Short story by Elizabeth BowenThe “jungle” in this story by Elizabeth Bowen is a sealed-off area of woods overgrown with tussocks of bramble (blackberry bush) near an English boarding school. It becomes a secret haven for a lonely student, a fifteen-year-old girl who has difficulty maintaining friendships with others in her class. Things change when she breaks tradition and bonds with a girl in another class. The relationship has its ups and downs, largely because of her new friend’s assertiveness, and culminates in an implied sexual awakening in the jungle. Themes include alienation, teenage relationships, social class, escape, sexuality.

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Long Distance

Long Distance: Short story by Jane SmileyIn this story by Jane Smiley, an early middle-aged bachelor learns an important lesson about himself. The story begins with his Japanese girlfriend calling off their long-distance relationship due to the impending death of her father. Although she is distraught, he is relieved because he did not think he could meet her expectations. After drinking too much at a family Christmas gathering, he comes to realize that the self-centered affair has probably ruined the poor woman’s chances of a happy life. Themes include physical and emotional distance, family, marriage, responsibility, identity, loneliness and isolation, selfishness, guilt.

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The Faith Cure Man

The Faith Cure Man: Short story by Paul DunbarIn this story from Paul Dunbar, a faith healer provides the last hope for a desperate woman who has been told that medical science can do nothing more for her seriously ill daughter. Despite the narrator’s skepticism, the tragic ending neither proves nor disproves the validity of faith healing. Although the mother certainly has the “faith”, the poor child is too young and/or sick to understand or even care about what is happening around her. The major theme of the story is that distraught people are easy prey to those offering false hope. Other themes: love, desperation, hope, faith, death.

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