These angels are useless. The heavenly agents that populate Chris Adrian’s new story collection, A Better Angel, sit idly by their hapless wards, disappointed and impotent. Their existence, it seems, is incidental, and at times they are nothing more than a higher order of fuck-ups. Which somehow makes these angels strikingly believable. A trinity of … Read more
Psychology class, at the Saint Paul campus, ended its session. Two students remained. He opened the door for her. She wore a baggy, off-white dress shirt with a narrow, new-wave neck tie. She approached. As if gentlemen’s rules, he opened the door wider. She stopped a few paces from the door. He extended his arm, … Read more
I opened the door to hear, “Stop! Don’t come in! I’m jacking off!” My roommate was leaving to go back to the States in thirty minutes, but apparently he felt the need to do it one last time before he left. And there he was, wearing nothing but a University of South Carolina Gamecocks hat, … Read more
2007 was almost certainly the first year in my adult life that I abandoned more books than I finished. For years I was a masochist about reading, and once I made any sort of investment in a book –bought it, checked it out from the library, cracked the pages– I felt obligated to finish the … Read more
As I was saying, we Crystal Methodists have some unusual customs and rites when it comes to preparing our loved ones for mortal coil off-shuffling. But first I must apologize for the delay in posting this entry. My mound of dirty clothes finally reached a point where I could no longer get out of my … Read more
You were born thirteen years and seven months ago, in the middle of a January night so cold the defroster in my old pickup truck wouldn’t work on the drive to the emergency clinic. You were the last pup born, the runt of the litter, and I watched in exhausted wonder as you … Read more