Featured Stories

Christmas Not Just Once a Year

Christmas Not Just Once a Year: Short story by Heinrich BöllThis farcical comedy by Heinrich Böll can be looked at from two perspectives. The first is as a Christmas satire. After years of austere Christmases during World War II, the wife of a German businessman becomes hysterical when the tree for the traditional lavish family Christmas of 1946 is taken down. To prevent her being institutionalized, her family agree to re-celebrate Christmas Eve every day of the year. They go to ridiculous lengths to do this, destroying family unity in the process. Themes: family, tradition, mental illness, alienation, dehumanization, commercialization and loss of the spiritual meaning of Christmas, facing reality.

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The Canterville Ghost

The Canterville Ghost: Short story by Oscar WildeOscar Wilde is known for his comedic, usually satirical stories that focus on the shallowness and hypocrisy of the Victorian upper class. He goes several steps further in this playful ghost story, also mocking the brash practicality of wealthy Americans and some of the common devices used in horror and romantic literature. A fascinating aspect of the plot is the way Wilde builds sympathy for his spectral protagonist before revealing the petty reason the cruel man murdered his unfortunate wife. Themes: (general) British vs American culture, tradition, compassion; (the ghost) duty, artistry, suffering, atonement, redemption, peace.

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Terrapin

Terrapin: Short story by Patricia HighsmithThis story by Patricia Highsmith involves a psychologically disturbed woman who cannot face the prospect of her eleven-year-old son “growing up”. The poor boy faces humiliation and bullying at school by having to wear tight, much younger boy’s shorts and is embarrassed at home by being forced to recite children’s poetry for his mother’s guests. When she brings home a terrapin (turtle) to cook for a special dinner, he mistakes it for a pet. The terrapin’s seemingly agonising death in boiling water, including a perceived cry for help, triggers a terrifying response. Themes: child abuse, control, change, identity, escape, insanity.

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Exchanging Glances

Exchanging Glances: Short story by Christa WolfThis autobiographical story by Christa Wolf provides a unique perspective on the final days of World War II, told from the viewpoint of a middle-aged German woman looking back on her time as a teenager fleeing the Russians with her family. Part of a column of refugees, she recounts being strafed by American fighter planes, learning of Hitler’s death, encountering a retreating Wehrmacht unit, and coming face-to-face with liberated concentration camp survivors. Ironically, some confronting experiences on reaching the “safety” of American lines leave her in tears. Themes: war, the vagaries of memory/selective amnesia, changing perspectives, dislocation, loss, death.

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Black Is My Favorite Color

Black Is My Favorite Color: Short story by Bernard MalamudIn this cynical take on 1960s race relations by Bernard Malamud, a Jewish-American shopkeeper turns the traditional racial discrimination debate on its head. Claiming to be open-minded and desirous of not only integrating with his local African-American community but also marrying into it, he finds himself shunned, vilified, beaten and rejected for his efforts. Some reviewers suggest that he has brought these problems upon himself by trying to be “too kind” and unintentionally coming across as privileged and condescending towards those he tries to help. Themes include racial inequality, racial and religious discrimination, interracial relationships, violence.

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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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Mr Miacca

Mr Miacca: English folktale from Joseph JacobsMr. Miacca is an English folktale of the ‘bogeyman’ type, where adults tell stories of imaginary beings to frighten young children into being good. In the story, a boy does something wrong and finds himself about to be cooked for Mr. Miacca’s dinner. He gets away by tricking Mrs. Miacca. The forgetful boy makes the same mistake, and again finds himself on Mr. Miacca’s dinner menu. This time Mr. Miacca watches over the boy himself, and decides to cut off the lad’s leg (which he throws in the cooking pot) to make sure he doesn’t run away.

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The King of Jazz

The King of Jazz: Short story by Donald BarthelmeThe King of Jazz provides a satirical account of several aspects of the American music scene. Donald Barthelme loved jazz, and his main target here are fickle music critics and the way they try to out-do each other with flowery and often meaningless language when describing performances. He also makes fun of the ‘cutting contests’ once used by musicians to judge themselves against one another and, in so doing, satirizes the system of ‘chair challenges’ that were (are?) common in U.S. school bands. Finally, he sends up the notion that American musicians are the preeminent force in world jazz.

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