Showing 12 posts tagged linked stories
Here is the fourth set of showcased linked stories: The Nathan Stories. I hope you enjoy.
√ Superman Comes to Dinner (in Ducts)
√ Riverbed (in Connotation Press)
For other showcased series of linked stories, see below:
“He wrote me a letter a few months back,” Dennis said. His voiced cracked. “We didn’t know each other very well. Spent most of his life with his mother on Long Island.”
“Like his father,” Maggie said. She smiled, and it pulled Dennis in.
“He told me about this girl he loved,” Dennis said. “She’s it, he kept writing. Then he lost her. I think that was everything for him.”
“Did you visit him?” she asked.
“No. I got the sense he didn’t want to. He just needed to let me know that he was still there.”
Maggie nodded but said nothing. Dennis stared at her. He wanted to lean over the table and kiss her. He had countless questions to ask her, probably countless more to answer. Things had never really ended, at least not in any way that could be explained. Maggie, their life together, his feelings—everything had become too much and not enough and beyond reach. Dennis wasn’t the kind of man, ever, to demand. Instead, he just let her go. But none of that mattered. He hadn’t seen her in three decades yet, at that moment, she was his closest friend.
“It’s a good way to think of him,” Maggie said. “Still there.”
Dennis allowed himself to smile, really smile, and become caught up in the woman sitting in front of him.
“At the end of the letter, Andre asked if I remembered a particular baseball game—game four of the division series, when the Mets played the Giants. It was years ago, but of course I remembered. That Bobby Jones, he wrote. What a bum. It made me laugh out loud.”
Maggie was smiling when Dennis looked up at her. “That’s your word.”
“Yeah. That’s my word.”
√ Read “We’re Grownups, After All” in its entirety over at Assisi
√ Read another of The Andre Stories, “Based on True Events,” in Mixer
“That picture of Maddie is still around. The scratch in the lens fractured her face. The effect left Maddie with two faces: one, the top face, seemed vibrant and intense; the other, bottom face, looked indifferent, aloof. Andre, in his own way, came to love both. Until he died, he kept the picture framed on his nightstand. I thought it strange, almost masochistic. Once, not long before his death, I found Andre asleep on his bedroom floor holding the picture, the corners of the frame digging into his chest.”
“Now, we were just old enough to drive each other to madness.”
“I thought there’d be music of some kind, rhythmic and sad, when I walked into the house that day, a pivotal moment in the low budget, poorly-lit indie film of my life. The camera would dolly with me walking into the house, looking oblivious and euphoric. Perhaps I smell something perfumed in the living room; I might lean down to pet Charlie before realizing that he’s no longer there. The music would be strong and difficult; I hear the song from the radio as I reflect on it. Edits, though, would make the moment, cutting back and forth from my ignorance to your bliss as the music grew louder and more profound. I would open the kitchen door, slow and precise, as the song climaxed with you—now my lover smells like rain—and the camera would jib around, catching my eyes in mid-blink, closer and closer as the pupils filled in the white and shattered.
But there was no music, no camera angles to consider. Only the reality of what you had done. I saw it every night, as I tried to sleep and hoped that something, anything, would turn it off.”
Jack had always called her a Manhattan girl, but she was never sure exactly what that entailed. She knew, though, he meant it derisively. She thought of that as she walked up and down the aisle of mothering books and had the urge to call him. He wouldn’t answer, she knew. There was little to say between them. Their marriage had ended with very few words. You’re so young, her mother would say. You’ll bounce back. Elizabeth pressed her hand on the right side of her belly. There was movement. She knew she could bounce back, that she probably would. No part of her wanted to be a single mother.
She found the book, opened it. Already, she felt alienated: the introduction was littered with words like “spouse” and “partner” and “traveling companion.” All of those things were gone, and it was her fault. She knew that now. Jack had been afraid, and he tried, he did, to tell her. She just couldn’t hear him then. The pages of the book felt coarse and new, and she bent the spine, creased it, to make it look worn. She turned the book over and read the back cover: “where life is no longer neatly divided,” it said; that was motherhood, nothing she could control. Elizabeth felt flushed and closed her eyes. In all the uncertainty, she knew one thing: she didn’t want to be a mother without Jack. A sense of hysteria filled her, and her head again grew light. After eight months, Elizabeth could still feel Jack, bittersweet, on her tongue.
High-res
My short story collection, or novel in stories: If You Waited Here, You Would See Almost Everything.
Currently shopping. Share the love, s’il vous plaît.
From my collection, here is the third set of showcased linked stories: The Charlie Stories. I hope you enjoy.
√ Duplex (in Brevity)
√ Sometimes When I Talk, It’s Like You’re Not Even There (in Up the Staircase Quarterly)
Supplementary stories:
√ Girl With Crescent Smile (in Pure Slush)
From my collection, here is the second set of showcased linked stories: The Andre Stories. I hope you enjoy.
√ Based on True Events (in Mixer)
√ We’re Grownups, After All (in Assisi)
Supplementary stories:
√ Greenpoint (in Paper Darts)
From my collection, here is the first set of showcased linked stories. I call them The Ben Stories. I hope you enjoy:
√ Greenpoint (in Paper Darts)
√ It Was the Light (in Metazen)
√ Late Night, Local Stops Here (in TrainWrite)
√ Somehow There Was More Here (in Found Press)
Supplementary stories (with slight link):
√ Based on True Events (in Mixer)
√ Cloisters (in Mixer)
√ Don’t Forget You Love Me (in Used Furniture Review)
I like to think of my fiction collection as both—the stories themselves stand alone (I hope), and when read as a whole, the collection has a very novelistic feel. I aimed for both over the years of writing these stories, and whether I was successful or not, I suppose, is in the hands of the reader now.
As I am currently shopping for an agent with this collection/novel, I will be showcasing some of these “linked stories” this week on my site. Hope you enjoy, even a little.
(If you’re interested in discussing my writing, agent, editor, or otherwise, feel free to email me. Look forward to it.)
Unrelieved Responsibility & Permanent Distraction: The Writing of Danny Goodman
“My circumstances
of unrelieved responsibility and permanent distraction necessitated the
short story form." ~ Raymond Carver
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