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The only certainty in life is that death not only comes for us all, but it also comes for those we love. Grief is to be expected, yet our sorrows are often private affairs. Sometimes we lead ourselves out of the darkness. Sometimes the darkness swallows us. And sometimes we stumble upon a brother or…
A sobering, disquieting reality is that identity isn’t entirely intrinsic: We are shaped by our circumstances. Within that disquiet, the idea persists that there is a core—something immutable—to every person. Nevertheless, people can be shaped, altered, mutated, changed. That identity can be imposed by others with more power and privilege, is frightening. This possibility, explored…
In the 1969 postmodern Victorian novel The French Lieutenant’s Woman, John Fowles frequently positions his characters at historical junctures they’re ignorant of, inviting us to consider how this or that twitch of neurosis could anticipate the century to come.
At the center of Scar, originally published in Spanish as Cicatriz (2015), is Sonia, a young woman who is bored by her job and burdened by life at home with her overwhelmed mother, younger siblings, and grandmother with worsening dementia. As someone who has “always liked wearing masks,” Sonia finds escape online, frequenting chat rooms…
Maybe the first collection of short stories published by a fifty-three year old writer who’s been writing since he was sixteen is bound to be pretty wide-ranging.
Halfway through John Chrostek’s Boxcutters is a brief, deadpan story in which Richard Nixon wades into a fishpond and becomes a conduit for “the Sight.” Believing himself to be clairvoyant, even though he actually sees the past, Nixon recalls his indifference to a young Black man’s tragic death while he was president. Before he can…
For my high school’s production of Sophocles’ Antigone, I went hard for the part of Haemon, Antigone’s boyfriend who dies because of his father’s hubris. I thought the role would both showcase my acting chops and give me an excuse to stop shaving my legs. It wasn’t until rehearsals, when I learned Tiresias’s backstory, that…
Debbie Urbanski doesn’t want to be interviewed. That’s the first thing I notice when we ask Google to record and transcribe our conversation on a Wednesday afternoon in March. After the release of her first book, After World — a novel she began working on during the Obama administration, but did not release until after…