“You can rinse now.” He lost count of how many times he had said this to patients, but no matter the number, he got a vicarious pleasure from the smile of relief on their faces. If only there was such a phrase for his life, …
The oncoming car wouldn’t stop. Didn’t the driver see me standing in the middle of the road? At any moment, I kept telling myself, he would notice me and swerve. But he didn’t. Closer and closer came the headlights. My eyes squeezed shut to block …
You, my uncurled companion, dream me a story while your body runs rings around mine. Don’t give me a bleak view of the moon. I am not immune to the wind. Nor are the iced highways east and west of here. Bring me a stone …
I think it’s too intricate for its own good. But what the hell am I gonna do about it? I mean, no plan that would work would be simple enough to pull off, would it? I don’t know. All I do know is that I’ve …
I held her hand and led her toward the beach, our way along the path through the rushes lit only by the moon, our soft canvas shoes sinking into the deep sand. When we emerged from the tall grass, I stopped to get my bearings. …
Aliens of Affection is the perfect title for Padgett Powell’s most recent collection of short stories because it is at once alienating and endearing. Powell’s stories precisely reflect his characters’ mental stations and instability, underlining the extremes people go to for sanity. Despite the delirium …
Voice is the key to Powell’s first novel, Edisto. “You say it ‘Simmons.’ I’m a rare one-m Simons,” says Powell’s 12-year-old narrator and child genius, Simons Manigault. Simons is a real kid, a young pillar of sanity in the midst adult absurdity, whose voice is …
The 1990 Pulitzer Prize winner The World Doesn’t End is the only prose poetry collection to date to win that prestigious award. At the time the outcry and protests of prosaic poets and stuffy reviewers could be heard everywhere. The controversy itself was the only …