Featured Stories

Youth

Youth: Short story by Joseph ConradThis story from Joseph Conrad is more than a survival tale about an unseaworthy ship beset by bad luck. Central themes are youthful exuberance bordering on recklessness, regret for its passing, and the romance of the sea. The explosion that sinks the vessel marks a turning point for a young ship’s officer. Up until then, his enthusiasm had been fueled by a youthful desire to experience the wonders of the East. He discovers a new side of himself (leadership ability) when he temporarily takes command of the crew’s evacuation to the lifeboats. Other themes: courage, duty, misfortune, survival, self-discovery, pride.

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Almost No Memory

Almost No Memory: Flash story by Lydia DavisWhen Lydia Davis wrote this flash story, she may have been reminded of a quote attributed to Albert Einstein: Never memorize what you can look up. Some people have a knack for remembering almost every detail of past events; others have a talent for putting names to faces or remembering facts and figures. However, most of us forget more than we remember. A word that often comes up in describing Davis’s writing is “playful”. Here she takes a playful look at memory (or rather lack of it!), and then moves on to memories and their relationship to original thought.

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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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Long Distance

Long Distance: Short story by Jane SmileyIn this story by Jane Smiley, an early middle-aged bachelor learns an important lesson about himself. The story begins with his Japanese girlfriend calling off their long-distance relationship due to the impending death of her father. Although she is distraught, he is relieved because he did not think he could meet her expectations. After drinking too much at a family Christmas gathering, he comes to realize that the self-centered affair has probably ruined the poor woman’s chances of a happy life. Themes include physical and emotional distance, family, marriage, responsibility, identity, loneliness and isolation, selfishness, guilt.

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You’ll Learn Soon Enough

You’ll Learn Soon Enough: Short story by Lao KhamhomThis tale by Lao Khamhom is a loosely based sequel to one of our earlier stories, As If It Had Never Happened. Road and bridge building projects have connected a once isolated Thai rice farming village to the outside world. A young girl, excited about her first bus-trip to a nearby town to sell vegetables, is befuddled by a petty extortion attempt at a government counterinsurgency checkpoint. Later, she experiences real graft when the “concessionaire” of a newly built highway refuses to allow her and other village busses to proceed. Themes include innocence, family, progress, connectivity, change, fear, oppression, corruption.

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Don’t Look Now

Don't Look Now: Short story by Daphne du MaurierThis Daphne du Maurier story opens with a British couple dining in Venice. The holiday, through which they hope to rebuild their relationship following the death of their young daughter, takes an eerie turn when a fellow diner claims to be able to “see” the spirit of the dead girl sitting between them, and issues a grim warning that they should leave Venice immediately. When a family emergency calls them back home later that day, they take this as the meaning of the warning. The wife leaves the next morning; the husband never does. Themes: grief, the supernatural, scepticism, suspicion/paranoia.

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Thirst

Thirst: Short story by Ivo AndrićThe major theme of this story by Ivo Andrić is man’s inhumanity to man. Set in a remote Bosnian village shortly after Austrian annexation, gendarmes capture a rebel leader with a festering chest wound. He is thrown in a cell without treatment and denied water until he names his co-conspirators. As the gendarme commander sleeps soundly, his young wife listens to the man’s screams and pleas for water throughout the night. When she finally falls asleep, her husband wakes and forces himself on her. Other themes include justice, duty, betrayal, brutality, isolation and loneliness, despair, sexuality.

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Usher II

Usher II: Short story by Ray BradburyFirst published in 1950 as Carnival of Madness, this story by Ray Bradbury is also included in his anthologies The Martian Chronicles and The Illustrated Man. A wealthy book-lover, angry about destruction of his extensive library because of fantasy and horror story censorship on Earth, builds a look-alike version of Edgar Allan Poe’s House of Usher on Mars. He invites prominent book-banners to a party at the house, where they meet different Poe-inspired ends. Themes include censorship vs. personal freedom, the importance of speculative fiction, the danger of excess political correctness, zealotry (in this case, taking a protest too far!)

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