I had sex with this guy one Saturday night before Christmas and gave him my number and, something about him, I should have known he would be the type to call. For once, I was almost grateful 

This was fifteen years ago in Hoboken. The storefront apartment on Madison Street. Her front step served as a landing pad for local strays. One stray was a shepherd-and-lab mix, one was a

ELENA, 10 POINT:     This typeface—conceived of by independent typographer Leopold Shunt, as the moon set on the final night of his wife's life—disintegrates over time. The more a word is used, the more

In their early fifties Agnes gave a party that David remembered almost in its entirety. He wasn’t sure why. At the center of the evening was the surprise appearance of an old friend of Agnes—a pianist named Cassie, who’d made the drive out to the end of the island by herself. David 

The boy was born with fingers shaped like keys. All except one, the pinkie on the right hand, had sharp ridges running along the inner length and a flat circle at the knuckle. 

Russell had quit his job as a coal miner on his twenty-fifth birthday, though still, five years later, he would, at various times of exertion, spray flecks of occasional blood when he coughed. 

She asks how much farther it is to East Bergholt. When he tells her they won’t be there before nightfall, her face clouds over. He stares straight ahead, at the traffic that isn’t there, on this road that runs

The first letter arrived on the same day I found the body. It was addressed to her so I didn’t open it. Not immediately. I put it on the mantelpiece. 

To reach Abulabaz, Isaac the Jew climbs a pyramid of slaves: one, two, three, up their black backs to his saddle (Persian carpets secured by a leather harness).