Books from the Week of January 27
This week’s short reads
Five stories this week, the first one by Kevin Light-Ross will drop your jaw. The others are fiction, from blog fave Lena Valencia, and new names (to me) Jamey Gallagher, Jordan Harper and David Waters.
Recovery from Solitary is an Illusion by Kevin Light-Roth
Simply stunning stuff. Kevin Light-Roth is incarcerated and writes about spending a long time in solitary confinement:
Your mind retreats into daydreams and your daydreams grow complex and immersive. They tug you along on a course of their own devising, heeding none of your direction. Invariably, they involve conflict with someone, a real person from the life you once had or some imagined antagonist. You pace your cell reciting aloud the clever points you would make to these chimeras, issuing ultimatums to them. The daydreams are in no way pleasant and altogether unwanted. They enrage you.
Unforgettable. Go read it.
Nostalgia Act by Lena Valencia
Blog fave Lena Valencia has a new story in The Baffler. An aging dude goes to a rock show with his new girlfriend and some strange stuff happens. It’s a slow build, it’s moody and fantastic.
The Day After Easter, Atlantic City, 2024 by Jamey Gallagher
A dark, grimy story about a couple of addicts at the end of their rope. Gallagher’s descriptions are so rich I was holding my breath so I didn’t smell the scene:
She went back inside, finished with her first and probably only cigarette of the day (they had no money left) and her precious alone time, spent contemplating the rain’s pattern on the alley, the smell of Atlantic City in the morning, something like bacon wafting over from some breakfast place making her feel both hungry and sick, smell of ozone and the cigarette she smoked and the cloud of someone toking weed nearby, a wake n bake in progress somewhere, trying not to the think about anything in particular, though memories of their last few days together intruded, wild days that ended definitively the night before when he’d barked at her and she’d pushed back at him because she wasn’t going to put up with that shit.
My Savage Year by Jordan Harper
This story about a small town’s secrets is filled with stunning turns of phrase, told by a narrator that you know is unreliable, but you don’t know how.
When I was a senior in high school, my biology teacher murdered his entire family and got away with it. I’m going to lie to you about it now, but first I need you to understand this much: he did it. He killed them all, and in the end they let him go.
I’ve been trying to tell this story ever since. Trying to find the right lies I need to tell the truth.
The whole thing is like that. It’s grim, brilliant and unforgettable.
Nobody's Cowboy Now by David Waters
Jack is a doctor filling in at an ER in Idaho, and his motto is ‘nothing messy’. Things get messy. This poignant story has lingered for a while.
Jack’s heart was as soft as a beat-up Courtyard by Marriott pillow. He didn’t know this. He was a fine diagnostician for everyone but himself. All that time on the barstool with his ‘nothing messy’ motto and list of things he couldn’t abide? Just trying to build up his defenses. Defenses that Connie toppled with a few tears.