Featured Stories

The Weight of a Gun

The Weight of a Gun: Short story by Samrat UpadhyayIn this emotionally charged story by Samrat Upadhyay, a divorced woman tries desperately to prevent her schizophrenic adult son from self-harming or harming others. When she discovers that he has bought a gun and possibly joined Maoist rebels, she seeks help from his father. In the process, she befriends his pregnant, emotionally overwrought new wife who is being shunned by her family. As soon as the baby is born, the new wife does a runner and the husband follows, “temporarily” leaving the baby in her care. Themes include motherhood and motherly love, mental illness, loneliness and isolation, insensitivity, anxiety, superstition.

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Astronomer’s Wife

Astronomer's Wife: Short story by Kay BoyleThis story by Kay Boyle explores an empty relationship between a woman and her astronomer husband, and how a brief encounter with a “down to earth” plumber opens her mind to what could be. The astronomer appears more in love with his work than his wife, treating her purely as someone whose role it is to maintain the household order. The plumber, who treats her with respect, communicates freely, and symbolizes the physical world, highlights the dysfunctional nature of her marriage. Themes: control, gender roles, loneliness and lack of fulfilment in marriage, the intellectual vs. physical worlds, epiphany/revelation.

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The Lesson

The Lesson: Short story by Toni Cade BambaraA well-educated woman living in a poor New York neighborhood takes a reluctant group of local children on day trips to teach them about the world. The Lesson in this Toni Cade Bambara story involves an excursion to Manhattan’s up-market FAO Schwarz toy store. The children soon realize that nothing in the store is in their family’s price range. The young narrator is disturbed by not only the point of the lesson (economic inequality), but also the condescending way the woman talks about their neighborhood and the people living in it. Themes include education, social class, inequality, ostentation, patronization, resentment.

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Fat

Fat: Short story by Raymond CarverFew authors could write as powerful a story about a non-PC topic (body shaming) as Raymond Carver has done here. Major themes are the way we judge people, loneliness and choice. A waitress’s co-workers dehumanize a customer by making fun of his size. They have no empathy for the person within. The experience greatly affects the waitress. She is expecting change. Is it leaving her insensitive partner? Could she, as some readers suggest, be pregnant and worried about getting fat herself? Or has she been inspired to face something about herself that she has been too afraid to address before?

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Reunion

Reunion: Short story by John CheeverJohn Cheever’s Reunion is about a boy (Charlie) who reaches out to meet his estranged father, only to learn that the man is a rude, possibly alcoholic attention-seeker who delights in putting other people down. Before the meeting, Charlie was curious to see what his father was like: he was my father, my flesh and blood, my future and my doom. I knew that when I was grown I would be something like him. In cutting the reunion short, Charlie shows that he has the power to defy nature and avoid following in his father’s footsteps.

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The Lady With the Dog

The Lady With the Dog: Short story by Anton ChekhovAnton Chekhov’s Lady With the Dog is about a philandering misogynist who meets a much younger woman while on vacation. Both have unhappy marriages; both are open to holiday romance. They enjoy a brief affair, then go their separate ways. After parting, each becomes obsessed with the memory of the other. He tracks her down, and soon they are planning a future together. The story has an open ending, but one suspects that each now looks at relationships and the world in a new way. Themes: love, infidelity, guilt, morality, chauvinism, sexual objectification, commitment.

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Adam and Eve and Pinch Me

Adam and Eve and Pinch Me: Short story by A. E. CoppardIn one of A. E. Coppard’s more enigmatic stories, a confused man finds himself unable to open the doors in his house or communicate with his three children or servants. The inference is that he is dead and doesn’t know it. Relief comes when he awakens from a daydream with his wife beside him. However, he has a different identity and the third child featured in the dream, who had special powers, has not yet been born. Themes include the convergence of reality and fantasy, death, family, frustration, anger, precognition, identity.

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Town and Country Lovers

Town and Country Lovers: Short story by Nadine GordimerAlthough the South African law banning sexual intercourse between “whites” and “non-whites” was repealed in 1985 (five years after Nadine Gordimer wrote this story), inter-racial and inter-religious relationships are still frowned upon in some cultures. Moreover, as in the story, the consequences for women are often much more severe than for men. Despite the obvious affection between the two couples in the story, questions arise as to whether for the men the sex was a function of convenience rather than love, and the extent to which the women initially felt pressured into participating. Themes: forbidden love, sexual coercion, unequal consequences.

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