new yorker fiction

[aids69]

i've been reading a bunch of the stories in their archives...

they definately have a taste. i can't say it's exactly mine. they all seem to be melancholic, semi-domestic, old man reflections, with lots of distance between story-teller and the little action they have.

any thoughts on these supposed best of the best?

[--Ed.]

Christ, I wrote something really thoughtful and it got erased.

In a nutshell:

Thank Christ somebody, anybody is publishing weekly print fiction.

Still, people who read The New Yorker are usually nerds or rich and I'd rather be fiction editor for Playboy.

The story "Clara" from two weeks ago translated from Spanish was pretty good, and atypical of what New Yorker normally runs. Broke my heart a little bit.

The "Dinner Party" story was pretty good too, with a tiny bit dramatic ending.

Get back to you on your submission soon, it's been a zoo and I've fallen behind.

[bastian]

eugenides' (sp?) Great Experiment was the best i read. it was saved by the ending. i read clara. i remember it being unsettling. thirteen hundred rats was ok and weird, by tc boyle. haven't checked out the dinner party. easier to read the new yorker at work than playboy but your right about the comparision...

new yorker has nice, short and sweet comments too.

[--Ed.]

Piasecki.

[aids69]

google doesn't know what to do with piasecki... neither do i.

[--Ed.]

<<Kendall didn’t press. He was leery of getting Piasecki going on the subject of accounting. When Arthur Andersen had imploded, in 2002, Piasecki, along with eighty-five thousand other employees, had lost his job. The blow had left him slightly unhinged. His weight fluctuated, he chewed diet pills and Nicorette. He drank a lot.

Now in the shadowy, red-leather bar, crowded with happy-hour patrons, Piasecki ordered a Scotch. So Kendall did, too.

“Would you like the executive pour?” the waiter asked.

Kendall would never be an executive. But he could have the executive pour. “Yes,” he said.

For a moment they were silent, staring at the television screen, tuned to a late-season baseball game. Two newfangled Western Division teams were playing. Kendall didn’t recognize the uniforms. Even baseball had been adulterated.

“I don’t know,” Piasecki said. “It’s just that, once you’ve been screwed like I’ve been, you start to see things different. I grew up thinking that most people played by the rules. But after everything went down with Andersen the way it did––I mean, to scapegoat an entire company for what a few bad apples did on behalf of Ken Lay and Enron . . .” He didn’t finish the thought. His eyes grew bright with fresh anguish.

The tumblers, the mini-barrels of Scotch, arrived at their table. They finished the first round and ordered another. Piasecki helped himself to the complimentary hors d’oeuvres.

“Nine people out of ten, in our position, they’d at least think about it,” he said. “I mean, this fucking guy! How’d he make his money in the first place? On twats. That was his angle. Jimmy pioneered the beaver shot. He knew tits and ass were over. Didn’t even bother with them. And now he’s some kind of saint? Some kind of political activist? You don’t buy that horseshit, do you?”

“Actually,” Kendall said, “I do.”

“Because of those books you publish? I see the numbers on those, O.K.? You lose money every year. Nobody reads that stuff.”

“We sold five thousand copies of ‘The Federalist Papers,’ ” Kendall said in defense.

“Mostly in Wyoming,” Piasecki countered.

“Jimmy puts his money to good use. What about all the contributions he makes to the A.C.L.U.?” Kendall felt inclined to add, “The publishing house is only one facet of what he does.”

“O.K., forget Jimmy for a minute,” Piasecki said. “I’m just saying, look at this country. Bush–Clinton–Bush–maybe Clinton. That’s not a democracy, O.K.? That’s a dynastic monarchy. What are people like us supposed to do? What would be so bad if we just skimmed a little cream off the top? Just a little skimming. I’m telling you I think about it sometimes. I fucking hate my life. Do I think about it? Yeah. I’m already convicted. They convicted all of us and took away our livelihood, whether we were honest or not. So I’m thinking, if I’m guilty already, then who gives a shit?”

When Kendall was drunk, when he was in odd surroundings like the Coq d’Or, when someone’s misery was on display in front of him, in moments like this, Kendall still felt like a poet. He could feel the words rumbling somewhere in the back of his mind, as though he still had the diligence to write them down. He took in the bruise-colored bags under Piasecki’s eyes, the addict-like clenching of his jaw muscles, his bad suit, his corn-silk hair, and the blue Tour de France sunglasses pushed up on his head.

“Let me ask you something,” Piasecki said. “How old are you?”

“Forty-five,” Kendall said.

“You want to be an editor at a small-time place like Great Experiment the rest of your life?”

“I don’t want to do anything for the rest of my life,” Kendall said, smiling.

“Jimmy doesn’t give you health care, does he?”

“No,” Kendall allowed.

“All the money he’s got and you and me are both freelance. And you think he’s some kind of social crusader.”

“My wife thinks that’s terrible, too.”

“Your wife is smart,” Piasecki said, nodding with approval. “Maybe I should be talking to her.”>>

[aids69]

hehe haha. i'm not too quick.