Featured Stories

The Happiest I’ve Been

The Happiest I've Been: Short story by John UpdikeThis acclaimed story from John Updike concludes with the protagonist attributing his overwhelming happiness to driving a powerful car through the stunning Pennsylvania countryside, blessed irresponsibility, a waiting girl who would marry him, and twice being trusted enough for someone to fall asleep beside him. The second-year university student is on the cusp of manhood. Observing the party he had been going to all his life the previous night taught the shy loner that he, along with his friends, have out-grown childhood and need to move on with their lives. Themes: solitude, nostalgia, transition (from childhood to adulthood), looking ahead.

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The Small Key

The Small Key: Short story by Paz LatorenaIn this story by Paz Latorena, a woman living on an isolated Philippine farm yields to temptation when her husband leaves his coat at home. Inside a coat pocket is the key is to a small trunk containing the clothes of his deceased first wife. Consumed with jealousy and insecure in their relationship, she opens the trunk and burns the contents. The husband finds remnants of the clothing in the ashes of the fire, and readers are left to ponder what lasting damage the wife’s actions may have done to their marriage. Themes include emotional isolation, insecurity, jealousy, trust, betrayal.

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Diary of a Madman

Diary of a Madman: Short story by Guy de MaupassantAlthough not one of Guy de Maupassant’s best known works, this is still a fascinating read. The madman (and in this case thrill killer) is a highly respected magistrate who sentences an innocent man to death for one of his own gruesome murders. Later, he gets an additional thrill from witnessing the poor man’s execution. The motif here is that even seemingly incorruptible members of society can descend into madness and commit the most heinous of crimes. Themes: madness, false impressions, society’s fascination with killing (especially as part of war), the undiscovered madmen among us.

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The Homecoming Stranger

The Homecoming Stranger: Short story by Bei DaoIn this story by Bei Dao, a young woman in 1970s China has difficulty dealing with her father’s homecoming after being falsely convicted of literary crimes and spending twenty years in prison. She feels resentment, not only over what she sees as his ‘desertion’, but also over her mother standing by when she was imprisoned and tortured at age twelve. Fortunately, on coming to understand her father’s love and the courage he had showed, she realizes her selfishness and they reconcile. Themes include the unfairness and brutality of the Mao regime, resentment, hypocrisy, rejection, fatherly love, courage, selfishness, forgiveness, reconciliation.

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Two Words

Two Words: Short story by Isabel AllendeIn this story by Isabel Allende a young woman has become famous, traveling an unnamed South American country by foot delivering news, storytelling, writing letters for people, and selling “secret” words that have magical powers. One day, a feared bandit/rebel leader forces her to write a motivating political speech to help him become president. On departing, she whispers two words in his ear. The speech is such a success he becomes the favorite to win the election. However, obsessed by the meaning of her two words, he withdraws into himself. Themes include hardship, courage and determination, loneliness, the power of words.

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God Sees the Truth, But Waits

God Sees the Truth, But Waits: Short story by Leo TolstoyThis is one of Leo Tolstoy’s earlier short stories, published between his two epic novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina, and thirteen years before What Men Live By. It has themes of injustice, acceptance, forgiveness and redemption. The protagonist suffers a dramatic fall in worldly terms, which is more than matched by his growth in spiritual grace. The plot was not new. It is a re-working of an almost identical tale from War and Peace related by peasant character Platon Karataev. The novel was written for the Russian nobility; this version was targeted at its common people.

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The Life You Save May Be Your Own

The Life You Save May Be Your Own: Short story by Flannery O'ConnorIn this Flannery O’Connor story a cynical, manipulative, one-armed drifter is given a chance at redemption (settling down to a “better” life) by an equally manipulative mother desperate to secure a future for her mentally handicapped daughter. Rather than the daughter, the man only has eyes for the family’s “barn-find” automobile. Immediately after their wedding, he leaves the girl to an uncertain future at a roadside diner and drives on alone. Perhaps out of guilt, he unsuccessfully tries to absolve himself from the moral consequences of his actions by doing a good deed. Themes: disability, devotion, desperation, deception, redemption, independence.

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The Town Musicians of Bremen

The Town Musicians of Bremen: German folktale from the Brothers GrimmThe Town Musicians of Bremen is a story about four animals that have worked hard all their lives. They are now too old to work and face either being badly treated or killed by their owners. One by one they leave their homes and set out together to become musicians in the town of Bremen. However, they never reach Bremen. During the journey, the animals come upon a house owned by a band of robbers. By working together, they are able to frighten the robbers away and live happily in the house for the rest of their days.

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