Fiction – Page 38 – Michigan Quarterly Review

Fiction

“Pheasants of Detroit,” by Matthew Baker

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Every night, I built a blind in the field from heaped tires, shot pheasants from there. I’d found the rifle at the abandoned shooting range. It was an air gun, fired pellets with hollow points that left holes the shape of keyholes in the targets. So far I had killed two pheasants and, accidentally, one squirrel. I had never seen another person. Squatters occupied the other abandoned warehouses, but squatters avoided the warehouse in the field.

“Pheasants of Detroit,” by Matthew Baker Read More »

Every night, I built a blind in the field from heaped tires, shot pheasants from there. I’d found the rifle at the abandoned shooting range. It was an air gun, fired pellets with hollow points that left holes the shape of keyholes in the targets. So far I had killed two pheasants and, accidentally, one squirrel. I had never seen another person. Squatters occupied the other abandoned warehouses, but squatters avoided the warehouse in the field.

Coping With The Shame of the Books You’ve Outgrown

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How do we honor the books we no longer identify with that once felt like the perfect articulation of our being? My strategy for the longest time has been to simply not reread them. But that sort of willful ignorance just doesn’t feel sustainable. There has to be a way to honor what the book once did while still problematizing its contents.

Coping With The Shame of the Books You’ve Outgrown Read More »

How do we honor the books we no longer identify with that once felt like the perfect articulation of our being? My strategy for the longest time has been to simply not reread them. But that sort of willful ignorance just doesn’t feel sustainable. There has to be a way to honor what the book once did while still problematizing its contents.

“Cauliflower Heads,” by Francine Prose

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Europe was crawling with adulterous couples. Mostly, for some reason, one saw them at ruins, respectfully tripping over the archeological rubble. Just like regular tourists they seemed to be under some terrible strain, but unlike regular tourists they hardly looked at anything, so that when, say, a lizard streaked across their path, they’d jump and fall into each other with apologetic smiles, more like awkward teenagers than adults risking the forbidden.

“Cauliflower Heads,” by Francine Prose Read More »

Europe was crawling with adulterous couples. Mostly, for some reason, one saw them at ruins, respectfully tripping over the archeological rubble. Just like regular tourists they seemed to be under some terrible strain, but unlike regular tourists they hardly looked at anything, so that when, say, a lizard streaked across their path, they’d jump and fall into each other with apologetic smiles, more like awkward teenagers than adults risking the forbidden.

MQR 55:2 | Spring 2016

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Our Spring 2016 issue features a special section on the Flint water crisis. Flint native Kelsey Ronan explores the effect of the crisis on her family, and Tarfia Faizullah dedicates her poem “I Told the Water” to Flint; Matthew Baker and Jack Driscoll use fiction to look at life in Michigan today.

Also in this issue: Zhanna Slor remembers her family’s last years in the USSR and Kathy Leonard Czepiel remembers Columbine—again and again.

Fiction from Matthew Baker, Chelsie Bryant, Jack Driscoll, Daniel Herwitz, Janis Hubschman, and Laura Maylene Walter.

Poetry from Anna Lena Phillips Bell, Patricia Clark, Tarfia Faizullah, Jennifer Givhan, Alison Powell, and Alison Stone.

MQR 55:2 | Spring 2016 Read More »

Our Spring 2016 issue features a special section on the Flint water crisis. Flint native Kelsey Ronan explores the effect of the crisis on her family, and Tarfia Faizullah dedicates her poem “I Told the Water” to Flint; Matthew Baker and Jack Driscoll use fiction to look at life in Michigan today.

Also in this issue: Zhanna Slor remembers her family’s last years in the USSR and Kathy Leonard Czepiel remembers Columbine—again and again.

Fiction from Matthew Baker, Chelsie Bryant, Jack Driscoll, Daniel Herwitz, Janis Hubschman, and Laura Maylene Walter.

Poetry from Anna Lena Phillips Bell, Patricia Clark, Tarfia Faizullah, Jennifer Givhan, Alison Powell, and Alison Stone.

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