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Moscow, Idaho

Chris Offutt

‘Tilden stopped digging and wiped his sleeve across his forehead, leaving a brown smear on his skin.’

A Fan Letter

Stewart O’Nan

‘Before I begin I'd like to say that I'll try to remember everything as best I can, though sometimes I know it won't be right.’

The Driving Child

Mona Simpson

‘Staring out at the endless gray, Mary wrote a letter to her mother and told her she'd named the baby Jane, the name she'd years ago given her only doll.’

Xmas, Jamaica Plain

Melanie Rae Thon

‘I’m the one who got away, the one you don’t know; I’m the long hairs you find under your pillow, nested in your drain, tangled in your brush.’

Future Shock

Kate Wheeler

‘Althea's neck strained. Her black, small eyes shifted swiftly, blinked, then fixed evilly on Ingrid.’

Taken Out of Context

Paul Beatty

‘I’d never been in a room full of black people unrelated to me before.’

Home is Here Now

David Xiao

‘I told June that the woman they uncovered was not our daughter.’

The Lawyer’s Story

Paul Theroux

‘Bow tie, blue shirt, tight suit, cowboy boots—he was overdressed for Singapore.’

The Butcher of Bermondsey

Graham Swift

‘Then he led me out into the noise and the glare and the stink.’

Grateful

Jane Rogers

‘For what we are about to receive, may the Lord make us truly grateful.’

Frozen Fish

William Leith

‘I remembered the freezer from when we were kids. It had been important to us then, the site of many shameful boyish deeds.’

Toffee

Agnes Owens

‘"Bloody well wake up!" Maureen's mother called to her -daughter, who slept in the kitchen bed recess.’

The Gourmet

John Lanchester

‘I have vivid memories of my one or two visits to my brother during his incarceration in various gulags.’

Bicycle Thieves

Blake Morrison

‘Late June, scorched grass and sprinklers, the sky as if scuffed and beaten. Too hot to work, too lazy to think.’