Amy Hempel’s stories require your collaboration.
DIY MFA Reading List: “Gilead” by Marilynne Robinson
In trying to show us the light, Marilynne Robinson illuminates the darkness.
The Going-Away Party
“Drink up,” the man said to his daughter. “I don’t want to,” the girl said. “You need to understand how this feels,” said the man.
DIY MFA Reading List: “Collected Stories” by Raymond Carver
The tortured collaboration between Raymond Carver and Gordon Lish produced a masterpiece in American short fiction.
Fight Night
The recent Pacquiao-Márquez boxing bout was full of lust, anger, calculation, sport—the same as what’s occurring in Zuccotti Park, in Congress, in every household across America. Boxing is the sport of the now, and its lessons will be useful tonight.
DIY MFA Reading List: “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien
Truth is stranger than fiction in Tim O’Brien’s brilliant meditation on the Vietnam War.
DIY MFA Reading List: “Pilgrim at Tinker Creek” by Annie Dillard
Annie Dillard’s “Pilgrim at Tinker Creek” dares us to open our eyes.
DIY MFA Reading List: “Suttree” by Cormac McCarthy
Cormac McCarthy’s tragicomic “Suttree” is fueled not by a love of life, but an obsession with the certainty of death.
The Ornithologist’s Last Wish
“The geese are winging in from the north. First a hairline thread in the muted horizon, then a cross-stitch in the sky over Portaferry, in County Down, Northern Ireland. Soon a dark and honking seam gliding in against the ebbing tidal narrows, breaking rank at last to alight in ungainly spray atop the waters of Strangford Lough …”
DIY MFA Reading List: “T.C. Boyle Stories”
T.C. Boyle’s Collected “Stories” Poke Fun at Love, Death … and Everything in Between