It's been short stories pretty strictly this year. Trying to figure out the short narrative.

Adam Johnson's stories have me so stressed out. I know that may not sound appealing, but they're really quite good. Odd characters and situations, sometimes in a near future that is essentially a bigger-than-now metaphor for where we're at with fear or violence. Unexpected contrasts of the mundane and the strange.

There seem to be a lot of guns in the stories, and yet they are not particularly violent stories. For the most part. Most of the characters share a confused struggling against isolation.

Now, I may be bringing a lot of the anxiety to the table myself (2003, whoo-boy...), but I've actually had to put this down for a couple of days because, well, I can't take it. I've gone back to some ponderous Chester Himes stories I was reading.

But I'm looking forward to the rest of them. It's a little slip of a book.

I'm tired of stretching money out like elastic. --Big Pooh