Short Story: You in America by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Taken from Zoestrope All-Story, You in America by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, explores a Nigerian Igbo immigrant girl's experience in the US. This was nominated for the Caine Prize in 2002.

Here the girl is talking in first person.

"You believed that everybody in America had a car and a gun. Your uncles and aunts and cousins believed it too. Right after you won the American visa lottery, they told you, "In a month, you will have a big car. Soon, a big house. But don't buy a gun like those Americans."

Here she speaks about how she is watched with curiosity, how people assume certain things, how no one wants to know what part of Africa she belongs to. She does meet a man who is knowledgeable. He interests her.

"And you knew you had become close when you told him that your father was really not a school teacher in Lagos, that he was a taxi driver. And you told him about that day in Lagos traffic in your father's car, it was raining and your seat was wet because of the rust-eaten hole in the roof."

This story is told in a simple way but is very well worded without any loose ends. One dwells into her mind and speculates what is like to be her, of a different skin colour in the land of Whites. A story not to be missed....

Short Story: Honeymoon by Ivan Kilma

Honeymoon by Ivan Kilma is another short story I read online from a back issue of Zoetrope: All-Story.

"He drove with one hand, his other arm round the girl. Over the past year he had become used to driving in that mildly uncomfortable one-handed fashion, and the two of them had traveled like that across half of Europe, the German autobahns, the oddly deserted road between Chalons and Meaux..."

Here we see a man and a woman driving. They have known each other for too long and have been real close. Now she has got married to another man and is spending her honeymoon with this man. When they reach the place their destination, she asks him that they pretend it is their wedding and why not have a wedding feast. In that gothic house, there are five guests, one of them is a soldier and another a girl who seems to be smitten by the soldier. The man agrees to pretend although he wishes to be alone with her. While she is dancing with the soldier, he almost hates her. When at last they reach their room, she wishes to go out. They do go out and are almost in the verge of making love in a hut on top of a haystack, when they hear the soldier arriving with the girl.

At last they are alone and when she asks him if he loves her, he says no even though he is in love with her. He knows, she is using him yet he cannot do anything about it. He is too much in love with her.

"I love you," he said. "I love you madly and I'd give everything, absolutely everything for this moment with you."
"I know," she whispered. "I know. Dog," she then said quietly. "My dog!"

What I deduced from this story is that he is an older man and she opts not to marry him. So she goes and marries someone else but she spends her honeymoon with him, knowing that he can't refuse her. One ends up sympathising with the man and despising her.

Short Story: Dating A Dead Girl by Sara Powers

Dating A Dead Girl by Sara Powers is a short story I read in one of the back issues of Zoetrope All-Story.

Peter is looking for a house. He has limited resources. He is disillusioned with what he had been looking. His real estate agent finds hm a ramshackle house and suggests they move it to another neighbourhood. Peter is not too happy about it but he cannot afford any thing else.

"Peter was a design professor; he built conceptual furniture that was clever, ironic, enigmatic."

When he gets back to his garage apartment, he finds a beautiful, tall but mean looking girl waiting for him. She turns out to be the sister of a girl, he had dated only twice and did not call again. Meredith tells him that Charlotte is dead making him feel guilty although he had no reason to feel that way. Meredith says that their mother wants to meet him. He is reluctant but he agrees and goes to meet them. Meredith does not care either way if he comes or not. But Sigrid, Charlotte's mother is happy to see him as she assumes that Peter made Charlotte happy. He knows he did no such thing but is unable to escape them. He is asked to make a box to hold Charlotte's ashes.

"Charlotte's being cremated," she said, sitting. "And we're going to have a ceremony. Something sacred, a celebration. A release."
She stopped a moment, imagining, Peter thought, the release, whatever that was. He was wishing for one himself.
"What I want is a box of some sort to hold her ashes. A vessel." She took his hands again. He disowned them. "A vessel made with love by a man who kissed her. It's perfect."
There were many things to which Peter would have agreed in order to hear "Goodbye" from Sigrid and Meredith by then, and this he could do. A box for ashes, a vessel for his escape, a container for his guilt. Something plain, dignified, relatively simple. A lacquer of some somber, yet joyous color. He would have agreed to anything, and so he agreed to this, with relief, and promised a box within a few days."

Justin finds a place for the house to be moved and meanwhile, Peter builds a box in the shape of a tiny house for Charlotte's ash. Meredith comes and leaves the box of ashes with him. What happens next? I can't reveal the end without spoiling it.

The house for the dead girl is a metaphor. Peter does not have a place of his own yet he builds a tiny house to hold Charlotte's ash. For a girl he barely knew. That is the irony. This story is powerful.

Book Clubs

This week’s MUSING MONDAYS post is about book clubs!

Do you belong to a book club? Is it online, or face-to-face (f2f)? How long have you been with the group? What have you learned from them? Do you like how the group is run, or would you make changes to it if you could?

Formally, I have never been a member of any book club. Once I did participate in the discussion for East of Eden by John Steinbeck. Although it was supposed to be done in 15 days, it went on and on for two months are so, as initially people were too lazy to read the book. I was one of the first ones and impatient to discuss and no one to do it with. When those started trickling in, I had lost interest by then. I had moved on to many other books. It spoilt me for any other reading with that group. Next time they chose Catch 22 by Joseph Heller and it never got discussed! The Kite Runner met a similar fate. One too many, don't you think?

As I read at my own pace and own specific choices, I do not like the constraints placed by a book club. I do like to chose books from my blogger friend's recommendations. But reading together no, as of now. Especially online. I do discuss books with my close friends and my brothers. Somehow being a part of a book club is not very appealing to me. Maybe because of my initial bad impressions about it.

I think I should try joining an interactive one. I should give it a second chance. One should always be open for new ideas. Instead of novel reading, I am more open to online book clubs solely meant for discussing short stories. Can anyone recommend one to me?

Short Story: Ghosts by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Anyone who has read Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie would agree that she is not a writer to be missed. Her writing is so good that we are propelled towards it. I found Ghosts online at Zoetrope: All-Story. Do check it out by clicking on the title.

Like Purple Hibiscus and Half of the Yellow Sun, it too has references of the Nigeria-Biafra war and the after-effects of it.

James Nwoye, a retired professor of seventy-one, has gone to the University bursary to ask about his pension, whih he has not received or a while now. Here he meets another person Ikenna Okoro, whom he had known long time ago before the Nigeria-Biafran war. Everyone had assumed that Ikenna had dies in that war. So the professor is shocked to see him/ They get around talking about the olden times. Ikenna says that the red ross helped him escape to Sweden, not letting out reason for it. He does speak of his family whih he lost in the war. He asks James Nwoye about his family. The professor tells him that his daughter Zik, died in the war but he and his wife Ebere, had another daughter Nkiru, who is now a doctor practising in US. During the war, they had escaped to US. Although they did come back but they never could visit their old house.

"In fact, Ebere and I came back to Nsukka right after the war ended in 1970, but only for a few days. It was too much for us. Our books were in a charred pile in the front garden, under the umbrella tree. The lumps of calcified feces in the bathtub were strewn with pages of my Mathematical Annals, used as toilet paper, crusted smears blurring the formulas I had studied and taught. Our piano—Ebere’s piano—was gone. My graduation gown, which I had worn to receive my first degree at Ibadan, had been used to wipe something and now lay with ants crawling in and out, busy and oblivious to me watching them. Our photographs were ripped, their frames broken. So we left for America and did not come back until 1976. We were assigned a different house on Ezenweze Avenue and for a long time we avoided driving along Imoke Street, because we did not want to see the old house."

James Nwoye's wife Ebere, is dead. Still he can feel her presence. As he says, she comes to visit him, rubbing Nivea on his skin, the way she used to do when she was alive. Although dead, she is tangible for him. However, he can't speak about it to his daughter.

Here we have to speculate who is the ghost----Nwoye, his wife or Ikenna. In a way all three are. Dead or alive, it does not matter.....

Short Story: How to Bring Someone Back from Dead by Veronica Schanoes

I was kind of google searching for stories related with death and I found How to Bring Someone Back from Dead by Veronica Schanoes. As I am reading short stories right now, I thought to give it a go too.


The story has a has a surreal feel to it. And that is to be expected. Someone close to you is dead. It can be anyone, your father, mother, son, daughter, beloved. Anyone. You are under a lot of pain and you want to bring that person back from dead. So you undergo a journey to achieve that goal. You are hurt in the way. By the way of thorns, stones, brambles...

Then you have to avoid talking to the weird characters you meet on the way, like black Ravens or wolves who anyway do not speak your language.

"You may ask an old woman who sits by the path mumbling to herself. If you walk by without a word she will reveal herself to be a witch and eat you in two bites, but if you ask her for help and offer to share an apple with her, she will give you guidance. Do not throw stones at ravens. You may ask wolves for help, but you should not believe what they tell you. They do not think carefully. They do not think as we do."

You go on. Your pain for your loss plods you on. When you finally get there, you just lie down with that person. Although that peson does not acknowledge you. However, you made that journey. Is it fruitful?

To find that, read the story. I won't say, it shook me up. Because it did not. In Hindu mythology, we have numerous stories like this. So there was nothing new for me. Apart from the language, maybe. The new element here is maybe the modern interpretation of it. That too, is not new for me.

Short Story: Clara by Roberto Bolano

The New Yorker has some good short stories. I have been raving about it all week.

Clara by Roberto Bolano


"She had big breasts, slim legs, and blue eyes. That’s how I like to remember her. I don’t know why I fell madly in love with her, but I did, and at the start, I mean for the first days, the first hours, it all went fine; then Clara returned to the city where she lived, in the south of Spain (she’d been on vacation in Barcelona), and everything began to fall apart."

This is one story which kind of ignites and bangs on your on your face.
The narrator is in love with Clara most of his life. They just can't be together. However, he keeps thinking of her and also keeps in touch with her. He in his own way cares for her. In his words, after one such call to her:

"When I hung up, the homeless guy was standing about five feet away. I hadn’t heard him approaching. He was very tall, too warmly dressed for the season, and he was staring at me, as if he were near-sighted, or worried I might make a sudden move. I was so sad I didn’t even get scared, although afterward, walking back through the twisting streets of the town center, I realized that, seeing him, I had forgotten Clara for an instant, for the first time, and only the first."

Clara is cold towards him but she too cannot get away from him.

"Her voice was as cold as ever, that voice in which she always recounted her life with the detachment of a bad storyteller, putting exclamation marks in all the wrong places, and passing over what she should have gone into, the parts where she should have cut to the quick. "

Short Story: A Man Like Him by Yiyun Li

I read A Man Like Him by Yiyun Li online in The New Yorker. Yet another short story I read for the Short Story September Challenge. I have already read and loved her collection of short stories, A Thousand Years of Good Prayers.


In this story, Teacher Fei , a sixty four years old retired art teacher lives and looks after his mother who is in her nineties. He is not married the reason for which is not told, at least not in the beginning. In the course of the story we come to know that he is adopted by his mother.

In a magazine, he reads about a girl who is revengful of her father who she thinks had an affair whih resulted in his divorce with her mother. She wants that he should suffer becos of it. Thus she sues him for it. Teaher Fei, is somehow drawn to that father. And initiates a meting with him. Here we learn that he as an art teacher in a school had been accused of inappropriate behaviour with one of his girl students, although it was never proven. He wishes that the father should sue his daughter.

Teacher Fei, according to himself, is no angle. He goes to chatrooms pretending to be someone else.

"A man like him. In the street, Teacher Fei pondered Mrs. Luo’s words. What did that mean—a man like him—a bachelor without a son to carry on his blood, a retired art teacher whose name most of his students had forgotten the moment they graduated from elementary school, a disgraceful old man who purchased fashion magazines at the news-stand and wasted his afternoons alongside teenagers in a cyberworld, making up names and stories and sending out romantic lies? What did he deserve but this aimless walk in a world where the only reason for him to live was so that his mother could die in her own bed?"

The story is filled with suspense. And makes an engrossing read. Yiyun Li does not disappoint at all. In her stories, one gets a glimpse of the communist China. One of the best reasons to read her.

Short Story: Shorty’s Paradise by T. Coraghessan Boyle

ad yet another story, Shorty’s Paradise by T. Coraghessan Boyle in the Narrative Magazine for the Short Story September Challenge being run by CB James. I am enjoying exploring and reading short stories online. I have found many nuggets out there. This one is pegged as a sex story.

“Shorty’s Paradise,” is taken from T. Coraghessan Boyle’s novel The Inner Circle. This concerns sex research of varied "subjects" as they say, collecting data. Here the two scientists are involved in doing field research on the habits of coloured prostitutes. There they are caught the police in an unflattering position, which compels them to carry a letter for all such future research saying,“in the event that the nature of his research takes him into localities where the purpose of what he is doing might not be clearly understood.”

This has an interesting topic. Although it is pegged as a sex story, it s not titilating in that way. It speaks of sex research, not the sex act. The story is clinical. The narrator is interested in facts, collecting datas rather than anything else.

"My ears rang, my head ached, my eyes felt molten, and nothing, not even the details of the most arcane sexual practices could arouse me from my torpor—not coprophilia, incest, or sex with barnyard animals. I just nodded, held the subject’s eyes, and made my notations on the position sheet."

Although he does admit getting aroused talking to coloured prostitute.

"I remember being moved by her simple, unnuanced recitation of the facts, the sad facts, as I hadn’t been moved before. Unprofessionally, I wanted to get up from my chair and hug her and tell her that it was all right, that things would get better, though I knew they wouldn’t. Unprofessionally, I wanted to strip the clothes from her and have her there on the bed and watch her squirm beneath me. I didn’t act on either impulse. I just closed down my mind and recorded her history, one of the thousands that would be fed into the pot."

Short Story: Florette by Ward Just

Florette by Ward Just is yet another story I read online in Narrative Magazine for the ongoing Short Story September Challenge at CB James' blog.

It starts with Florette being carried in a stretcher by four man from a pine forest. It is very cold and snowing and those man are having difficulty in walking.

"The way down was hard, the trail winding and slick underfoot, insecure."

She has fallen down and hurt herself somehow while taking a walk on that Sunday afternoon. While they are carrying her, she goes about thinking about her life. She, a French woman is married to an American. She thinks of her mother, her father who left them both when she was five, her first husband, who was an older man and died leaving her nothing. She thinks of her knitting. She drifts from present to past, back and forth. She is conscious of her pain and the cold. She wants to reach the clearing as soon as possible but she can't do a thing about it. She is dependent on the people who had been carrying her and now are taking a little rest. They are not hikers but are rough and coarse people.

I liked the way the story goes. Initially we know nothing about the woman. Slowly we know that she is a middle aged woman. Her reminiscences about her past in he thoughts and it is as if we are intruding upon her thoughts. Another story told in inner voice. I recommend...