When the satellite was young, it thought only of the way bluegreen oceans slid against sandy brown shores and of how river arteries sliced through dense forest sheen like a lizard darting in haphazard lines though, of course, the satellite had never seen a lizard but it had seen life.… Continue Reading
“Like death, the violence was just where the thing ended,” Grandma said. “Your grandpa loved the training, the starving, the heat, the cold, the purpose. I know his least favorite part was the violence.”… Continue Reading
I wanted to write a BIG book. I thought of all the novels I loved and kept coming back to two: Shoeless Joe, by WP Kinsella, and The Natural, by Bernard Malamud. I wanted to write a novel in their spirit. Both use rich language to tell bigger-than-life tales with a dash of magic thrown in like a spice. Both are also baseball books, and my mantra for writing Yesteryear became “Swing For The Fences.” This meant that nothing was off limits. No brush stroke could be too broad. No joke was taboo. No character could be too fantastical. I gave myself total creative freedom. Just swing away and see what happens.… Continue Reading
My daughter Jenny is glaring now, so I tell her that chocolate ice cream is full of E-numbers. I tell her that E-numbers are nasty chemicals. I tell her the E stands for European. Then I go on a mini tirade about the bloody Europeans who’ve foisted us with rules for everything from the correct number of toothbrush bristles to the acceptable curvature of bananas.… Continue Reading
“Pain, we know,” he tells me, “has a much more complex grammar than pleasure.” He holds up the book. I guess it is a quote.… Continue Reading
Now, he is in the subway, waiting to transfer from the F to the G. His wet swimsuit is sweating dirty water at the bottom of his New Yorker tote. He is distracted—worried about ocean acidification and the ecological cost of clean green energy—and doesn’t notice the “freshly painted” sign. His back slides down the subway column, the green paint comes with him. He’s not too bothered by the new stripe on the back of his suit. Without evidence, he believes there are Native American warriors in his bloodline. They wore paint on their faces to battle. Now painted himself, he is honoring his history.… Continue Reading
It’s a good birthday, even though he trips on the dog bowl when he gets home, the one that’s been empty for two years, aluminum gleaming like a grimace from childhood… Continue Reading
If my uncles hadn’t carried their father into the backseat against my grandmother’s wishes and driven past the village clinic and all the way to the city my grandfather avoided and if my grandfather’s many children hadn’t insisted that everything that could be done be done because he was beloved and they couldn’t fathom a world without him in it and if they hadn’t told the doctors that yes, they understood, but they needed him to be okay… Continue Reading
Julie don’t wanna be sweet no more, she says Pastor Jeff’s eyes haunt her.… Continue Reading
I observed immediately that dating was identical to looking for a job. You needed to send out a lot of resumes and queries to get an interview. And you needed to interview a bit to find a match and then if the match seemed promising you would get a position, but still, you didn’t need to make a career of it. I essentially created a sales funnel.… Continue Reading