31 Days of Stories 2022, Day 10: “A Distant Episode” by Paul Bowles
In a prelude to his iconic novel, Bowles offers up a tale of a hubristic
American academic who has the tables turned on him during a trip to North Africa.
31 Days of Stories 2022, Day 8: “A Survey of Recent American Happenings Told Through Six Commercials for the Tennyson Clearjet Premium Touchless Bidet” by Omar El Akkad
In a brief and barbed satire, Giller winner Omar El Akkad links our current geopolitical malaise with the capitalist impulse to sell stuff.
31 Days of Stories 2022, Day 7: “Lost in a Pyramid, or The Mummy’s Curse” by Louisa May Alcott
The author of Little Women was also an aficionado of “blood and thunder,” a mode represented in this story about grave robbing and its attendant consequences.
31 Days of Stories 2022, Day 6: “The Trap” by Luigi Pirandello; Giovanni R. Bussino, trans.
Pirandello’s story takes up the writer and dramatist’s great theme: the instability of identity and the untrustworthy nature of physical reality.
31 Days of Stories 2022, Day 5: “Sexy” by Jhumpa Lahiri
Lahiri’s story excavates the emotional toll on a woman who is carrying on an affair with a married man.
31 Days of Stories 2022, Day 4: “The Kitchen Boy” by Alaa Al Aswany; Humphrey Davies, trans.
This story from the noted Egyptian author interrogates toxic power dynamics within institutions.
31 Days of Stories 2022, Day 3: “The People Across the Canyon” by Margaret Millar
Millar’s story, ostensibly a psychological drama, is in fact a trenchant satire on the pernicious attractions of a particular kind of American dream.
31 Days of Stories 2022: Introduction
If the novel is a regal lion king, the short story is a cackling hyena.
“Egotism at one remove”: Aldous Huxley on the partisan impulse
“Partisan loyalty is socially disastrous; but for individuals it can be richly rewarding.”
Sympathy for the devils: John Darnielle’s latest novel examines the ethical quagmire of true crime in the context of a taut thriller
Focusing on a writer investigating a double murder with Satanic overtones, the novel asks uncomfortable questions about how and why we consume such gruesome material.