from Kissing the Sword
“Don’t you all constantly claim that you’re opposed to America? Then why has news of the shuttle exploding upset you so much?” She looked at me wide-eyed and said,… More
Accomplice
It was a treat whenever Cameron jumped on his Huffy and bicycled his way from his Barry Circle apartment complex in Bloomfield to our home in the next town… More
The Last Visit from the Girl in the Willow Tree
She took a hammer and busted a chunk of her summer just to come see me when my life was on the line, behind glass in jailhouse oranges. More
How I Became My Father
“Where are you going?” my father asked, stepping out of his black GTO as I approached the Mission, a halfway house my mother forced me into after bailing me… More
My Father’s Violin
My father played his violin every evening, standing by the upright piano in our dining room. Hearing him play was my first memory, and I can no longer recall… More
Planted in Concrete
I stood and stared at the vent on the wall above the toilet in my cell, holding a ripped piece of my sheet in my hand. I knew the… More
Dostoevsky in the Ruins
I was watching a while ago a TV news program in which there was a view of Tehran after the air raid by Iraq, and the camera was panning,… More
On Writing
A young student once wrote to the French novelist André Gide to ask him whether he should try to become a writer. “Only if you have to,” answered Gide,… More
Walk Like a Man
Who’s Your Daddy? My birth mother’s name was Lula Mae. After her death my two sisters, three brothers, and I were taken in by various relatives. Melvin, the… More
The Years In Between
The tall gray wall encircles fifty-five acres of land. Spired towers with narrow steel doors, loophole windows, and floodlights straddle the wall, like spines on a fearsome dragon. Rolling… More
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