A Girl Is a Half-Formed Thing

A Girl Is a Half-Formed Thing

The hours come. They come. Over all the clock. Around with time. I am sleeping my face on your quilt. Hear the doorbell ringing. Know the cock has crew. Oh come in. Make yourself. Sit down. Our mother opening the door. In. My daughter. Dr. blah and blah. If you want...
Journey To The End Of The Night

Journey To The End Of The Night

The sky in Rancy is the same as in Detroit, a smoky soup that bathes the plain all the way to Levallois. Cast-off buildings bogged down in black muck. From a distance the chimneys, big ones and little ones, look like the fat stakes that rise out of the muck by the...
Capital

Capital

‘There are a few things we need to eliminate,’ the doctor said. ‘A brain tumour is the first of them.’ ‘I have a brain tumour?’ asked Petunia. She saw a tiny flicker in the man which showed that he did in fact think it possible that was what she had; it might even...
The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter

The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter

He felt they were laughing at him. Confusion caused him to forget what he had meant to say. The room was full of dark, strange faces and the air was too thick to breathe. He saw a door and staggered across to it. He was in a dark closet smelling of medicine. Then his...
Alias Grace

Alias Grace

Today Dr. Jordan looks more disarranged than usual, and as if he has something on his mind; he does not seem to know quite how to begin. So I continue with my sewing until he’s had time to gather himself together; and then he says, Is that a new quilt you are working...