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Winter Reading

Issue #46, 2010

Donald Barthelme wrote that "The aim of literature...is the creation of a strange object covered with fur which breaks your heart." This comes across as Karen Russell discusses her reality-bending work, as well as in Kevin Brockmeier's stunning rendering of a modern missionary's peripatetic spiritual journey, "Ryan Shifrin." The legendary Israeli writer and painter, Yorum Kaniuk, semi-autobiographically details his experiences as an ex-Israeli soldier in the heart of New York's golden jazz age. Not to mention Adrienne Rich and Eileen Myles keeping true to Pound's dictum to make it new. We hope that you enjoy these strange, furry things as much as we do.

$10.00
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Fiction:

Kevin Brockmeier, Teju Cole, Yoram Kaniuk, Roy Parvin, Dan Chaon, Zachary Mason, Rebecca Makkai

Kevin Brockmeier

RYAN SHIFRIN • God was a word that embarrassed people. So instead it was Good News he said.

Teju Cole

WELCOMERS • That other girl had been hidden in my memory for more than twenty-five years.

Yoram Kaniuk

EXCERPT FROM Life on Sandpaper • I was told to go to New York because there they were waiting to see their first Hebrew soldier.

Roy Parvin

TREETOP • At fifty-one Gibbs was still a big man, bigger than back in prison, where the chow hadn't done him any favors.

Dan Chaon

TO PSYCHIC UNDERWORLD

Zachary Mason

THE DUEL • I felt no regret and surprisingly little fear, thinking only that I had the freedom of all the world beyond my father's door.

Rebecca Makkai

PETER TORRELLI, FALLING APART • The point was he'd been my first love. I'd never actually loved him, but still, there's another kind of first love.
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Poetry:

Adrienne Rich, Jay Nebel, Eileen Myles, A. Loudermilk, Patrick Rosal

Adrienne Rich

GENEROSITY
TURBULENCE
WINTERFACE

Jay Nebel

THE POND
PARADISE
THE ORDER OF THINGS

Eileen Myles

ABOUT MARY

A. Loudermilk

WHERE THE BODY IS BURIED

Patrick Rosal

THE KING WON'T KILL ME
PRIDE FIGHT
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New Voices:

Matthew Sergio Ziniga, Jeremy Allan Hawkins

Matthew Sergio Ziniga

Poetry
PILLAR AND PILLOW
PARIS

Jeremy Allan Hawkins

Poetry
THE PRELUDE AFTER
THE CROCUS THIEF
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Features:

Lynne Tillman, Paul Bowles

Lynne Tillman

ADIEU, AMERICAN ABROAD • Wanderlust inspired the writer to follow in the footsteps of Paul Bowles. Ambition prompted her to contact him.

Paul Bowles

LETTERS TO HIS MOTHER, 1931
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Lost & Found:

Nathaniel Rich, Jeannie Vanasco, Hannah Tennant-Moore, Alexis Nelson, Don Waters

Nathaniel Rich

ON ITALO SVEVO'S Zeno's Conscience • Get down with this sadly overlooked masterpiece of high modernism from Trieste.

Jeannie Vanasco

ON ELIZABETH BISHOP'S Brazil • Life magazine commissioned one of the greatest poets of the twentieth century to write a book about her adopted country.

Hannah Tennant-Moore

ON THE CORRESPONDENCE OF RAINER MARIA RILKE AND ANDRÉ GIDE • These letters reveal a rich relationship between two inward-living men striving for true communication.

Alexis Nelson

ON SIMON GRAY'S The Smoking Diaries • With droll humor, the British playwright reflects on death and the loves of his life, that is, cigarettes, women, and Law and Order.

Don Waters

ON IAIN BANK'S The Wasp Factory • Boys are perennially entranced by small explosions and empowered by firing BB guns at small birds.
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Last Word:

Larry Doyle

Larry Doyle

Freelance File • Ideas for our times.

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