Tomislaw Sztern’s father sent him to America with the advice that every human relationship from employment to love survives on exploitation. Sztern, now Tommy Sternlight, had been in vaudeville since arriving in New York in 1904, when thanks to a string of shrewd social maneuvers he landed a job in Albany sweeping up after performances.

They said on tv that the military court handed down a death sentence to the Arab who’d killed the girl soldier, and they had all kinds of people come into the studio to talk about it, and because of that  

“The children made chase, but the dog was too fast for them, cutting a jagged path through several of the older girls and boys who tried to intercept it at the corner. Zheng waited with Chen Wei, 

I came to on the loggia—the only question was whose loggia? There was the Cavanaghs’ loggia, designed by that famous and locally celebrated architect whom I once met. The name is gone. 

Joseph Nagel slumped forward, head in hands. “My God,” he groaned. Elise snapped off the car radio. “Calm down, Joseph.” “That’s four straight days since we got here.” “Joseph, please.” “What do you think 

Let me tell you about my mornings. I’m an early riser. Most days, I wake up even earlier than my wife. If the sun has risen, thin rays of light filter down through the cracks in the ceiling. I just lie there

Jill arrived at the Royal Sierra every evening around six, took a stool in front of the TV at the open-air bar, and passed the time watching the news and quietly drinking herself stupid while Starkey 

There were two old men who made a project to defy gravity. The old knight, Sir Tor, had spent his life securing borders, incarcerating malefactors, protecting widows, reforming crop rotation, sending 

Neither of them knew what “carte blanche” meant, but if, during the Spanish Civil War, someone had bothered to explain it to them, they would both have replied in unison: “That’s us! That’s 

From Chicago to Chisinau: Aleksandar Hemon on the trail of an anarchist: "How did his hope so quickly turn to disappointment? How did the Land of the Free kill him, at the age of nineteen, months