"Hartford After Work" by Jack Kerouac

Perhaps we're stretching things a bit to call this picturesque travelogue of urban life a "short story," but it does have all the acuity of time and place Kerouac's always semi-factual fiction has, so who's to quibble? We see grubby, gritty mid-20th century Hartford through the eyes of a visionary writer and someone who felt as one with and yet separate from those teeming mobs on the city's streets. Read by Neil Miller.

On The Road is of course where everyone starts in a discussion about Jack Kerouac, but in fact he'd been writing and publishing for some time before that novel eventually made him famous enough to drive him crazy. His first couple of novels, unpublished and published, were much more conventional than the speeding, careening joyride of his most popular works, and yet they carried a full load of "promise." In his fairly short life the Lowell, Massachusetts native of French-Canadian extraction produced such a volume and variety of work one can soon see why "beatnik" is the most limiting apellation one could give him, rest his soul.

We last heard journalist and teacher Neil Miller giving voice to Hemingway's clean, well-lit cafe; even as you listen to this, Neil is deep within a southwestern cavern, doing research on his latest book. If he comes out alive, you may find that book on shelves near you some time in the next year or two. In the meantime, his upcoming revision of his history survey, Out of the Past, should tide us all over.

"A Late Encounter with the Enemy" by Flannery O'Connor

For quite a few decades in American history, it was custom to trot out surviving Civil War veterans every Memorial Day or Fourth of July or Armistice Day, whether or not the patriotism was Yankee or Confederate. Fortunately, they were doing this up through Flannery O'Connor's day, so she could write this typically hilarious, typically pathos-drenched story of a Southern "general" who, saber in hand, combats the enemy--whether it be within his own family or out there in the cruel, sensationalistic modern world. Read by Matt Kibbee.

A history of Flannery O'Connor should concentrate not on the tragic, despite her short life, but on triumph--her stories which are like no one else's and yet which everyone imitates even today, and her two novels, which still seem as fresh and strange as the days they fell from her typewriter. We're supposed to, of course, concentrate on her religious themes and Diane Arbus-like use of the grotesque, but it is really her wry, measured, always highly poised and polished voice that brings her characters and situations to life. So think not of her crippled by disease and love-loss, but happy amongst her peacocks in Georgia and winking at the so-so serious literary world.

Soon to be teaching English in Vietnam, newly minted summa cum laude Tufts University graduate Matt Kibbee is a faithful listener we are now proud to have among our contributors. He has also recently completed two novels--his own and War and Peace, quite an accomplishment no matter how you look at it. He comes to us from the lovely gorges and valleys of New York State.

"The End of Robinson Crusoe" by Michel Tournier

"What did ever happen to Robinson Crusoe?" Perhaps this question has kept you awake at night, and so Michel Tournier obliges in this translation by Barbara Wright... The author takes it for granted that we are familiar with the DeFoe novel, which he had already rewritten, radically, in his 1967 novel, Friday or The Other Island. Read by Scoot.

Michel Tournier rewrote his own version of Crusoe for children as Friday and Robinson in 1971; before and since he has been tackling history and historical figures often in his philosophical fiction. "The most gifted and original novelist to emerge from France since the [second world] war" is what the book jackets proclaim, and we are not ones to argue. His second novel, a retelling of the Erl King fable set in Third Reich Germany and translated as The Ogre, is even more highly regarded than Friday--in Tournier's works legend, myth, and the modern world often intertwine. A novel based on the life of St. Sebastian is reportedly still in the works.

On the Road

We're packing our bookbags and heading off down the lonesome highway for a few weeks, searching for new stories and new readers... but promise to try to keep posting new stories when and if we can. Don't be surprised if our descriptions will be short or sound quality even lower than usual, though we promise to try to polish things up as best we can... eventually.

We may not be able to post every other day, but we will post as often as we can. Please be patient and keep coming back! We always appreciate anyone who stumbles upon our humble site and lends a welcoming ear. Listen on!

"The Saint by Accident" by Mohammed Mrabet

Yesterday we offered you a story by latter-day Moroccan Paul Bowles; today we present a story by one of the young Arabs Bowles taped and then translated into English from the Moghrebi. The story Mr. Mrabet tells to Bowles's recorder is perhaps not that different from those told around North African campfires; however, it has a distinctive deadpan irony which is all Mrabet's. Are saints born or made? There may or may not be an answer here. Read by Gerrit Lansing.

It is hard to think of Mrabet, who comes from the Rif Mountains, as a "writer" in the conventional western sense, since he was essentially illiterate before meeting and being employed by Paul Bowles. In collaboration with Bowles, Mrabet produced many volumes of short stories, novels, autobiography, and even at least one play. Mrabet's method was to smoke a lot of kif and proceed to conjure up erratic yet very compelling narratives that are hard to put down if only because they never pause for a second.

Gerrit Lansing has hardly paused for a second throughout his life, either, and has been acquainted with Bowles's post-World War II theatrical world of playwrights and composers, then with many members of the so-called Beat Generation, the avant-garde poets and film-makers of the 1960's and '70s, and a loose-knit and far-flung legion of writers and musicians and artists still active today. In fact, there's scarcely an important man or woman involved in the arts who this product of Chagrin Falls, Ohio hasn't met or known in his decades as a poet and cherubic rabble-rouser. His latest collection is Heavenly Tree, Soluble Forest.

"The Garden" by Paul Bowles

A typical Paul Bowles story contains human folly, poison or magic or both, and brutality, told in the dispassionate voice of a folk tale--and this one is no exception. Here, a poor man who loves his garden is victimized needlessly because of that innocent love. Read by Scoot.

If you know anything at all about Paul Bowles, when you think of him, you'll think of Morocco, a mild eccentricity, and the culture clash between the ancient and modern worlds. He was also a composer of theatrical and "serious" music which is actually quite good, though usually far more conventional than his fiction or travel writing. His years of living in and traveling through Northern Africa led to the breakdown of his marriage to the writer Jane Bowles, the publication of such novels as The Sheltering Sky, and his collaboration with and translations of several Arab writers.

"Another Holiday for the Prince" by Elizabeth Jolley

"In Pottery Class I'm making a jar with a lid. If it comes out all right I think I'll use it for a jewel box as we don't ever eat marmalade." That's how this story about disaffected youth in late 20th century Australia ends; listen and hear how it begins. Read by Sebastian Stuart.

Though she was born and raised in England, Elizabeth Jolley grew up in a German-speaking household. Before she was married she worked as a nurse; after her marriage she and her husband emigrated to Australia, though Jolley did not become well-known (as a writer of radio dramas) until 1975. She easily moved from plays to short stories and then to novels, and lastly, autobiography. Her work is known for its eccentric characters, daring plots, and gimlet-eyed social criticism. Foxybaby is one of her most famous novels, but she hasn't been published in America for quite some time now--shame on you, publishing world!

The last we heard of Sebastian Stuart he was completing a novel about New York society, polishing off a series of comic skits for a Boston charity organization, and working on several movie deals. It is rumored he may even be considering a run for vice-president (with his favorite female candidate at the top of the bill).

"The Rockpile" by James Baldwin

Stay away from the rockpile, the boys are warned, but the allure is overwhelming for these children of the inner city. Ultimately, one boy must suffer for his half-brother's sins. Read by Scoot.

Another Country, Giovanni's Room, Go Tell It on the Mountain, Notes of a Native Son, "Sonny's Blues," "Going to Meet the Man" .... these are a few of James Baldwin's more popular works. Raised in Harlem, he had to relocate to Europe to begin his career as a writer, a career which soared with scathing indictments of racism and poverty. Baldwin lived from 1924 to 1987.

"The Lightning-Rod Man" by Herman Melville

In the middle of a raging thunderstorm, a salesman knocks at the door with fearsome warnings of what might happen without a you-guessed-what. This short story could shock you! Herman Melville was originally paid $18 for it, though you might agree that it's worth at least twenty (and here it is for you--free!). Read by Jonathan Strong.

Oh, dear--where to begin with Mr. Melville? Surely you know Moby Dick even if you haven't taken the time to read it, and you might have read "Barteby the Scrivener" or perhaps Billy Budd (or seen the play or movie or Benjamin Britten and E. M. Forster's opera). And the more astute among you may know his South Seas novels or even his poetry. Certainly one of the most interesting and complex writers America has ever produced, Melville was a former cabin boy who once lived among real cannibals and later hobnobbed with Boston Brahmins (we'll leave it to you to decide who ate their own with most vigor). He had enough sense later in life to become a farmer.

Jonathan Strong's recent revision of his second novel, Ourselves, is still available.

"Paper Pills" by Sherwood Anderson

Like most of the residents of Winesburg, Ohio, Dr. Reefy has a secret history--which Sherwood Anderson is glad to reveal to us. Well, everyone in town did wonder why that tall dark girl ever married the nervous middle-aged doctor. Read by Scoot.

Though he also wrote novels and poetry, it is probably for his short stories that Anderson, born in Ohio in 1876, is best remembered. He certainly will always be recognized as one of the chief innovators of the American short story cycle, embodied in his tales of midwestern small-town life--its hidden despair and quiet joy. (Emphasize the despair.) You can read more about his real life in his autobiography, Tar. Anderson died in 1941.

"Gifts" by Myra Goldberg

At a municipal swimming pool, a mother and daughter together reflect upon three generations of women in their family, all within the space of less than four pages. Read by Martha Collins.

Whistling and Other Stories is the short story collection by Myra Goldberg where you'll find this subtly surprising story. Goldberg, who has a teenage daughter of her own, teaches at Sarah Lawrence College and lives in Manhattan. "Deeply serious and very funny," is how Grace Paley described this author's work, which has been anthologized at home and abroad and translated into French.

The award-winning poet Martha Collins makes her second appearance on these pages with this reading. Her works include The Catastophe of Rainbows and The Arrangement of Space. Look for her latest book of translations, poems by Vietnamese author Lam Thi My Da, Green Rice, available now.

Absent-Minded

Sorry to miss a couple days here--the staff took an unexpected weekend vacation, hoping to bag a couple of new stories from different readers on the way but coming back empty-handed. Nevertheless, we have plenty of stories "in the can" and others in the works...

A few reminders about this site, in case anyone ever reads these little announcements:

"Stories to Go" is totally free, free of ads and free of inducements to do anything but go to your local (not chain and not online, if you can avoid it) bookstore or library to obtain the books whence these stories come.

Therefore, although we are very happy with the work of our friends who read for us, none of us is a professional reader and we make plenty of mistakes and never edit and our studio is low-budget, if nonexistent.

All of these stories are read "cold," that is, with no rehearsals, no preparation other than clearing our throats, and quite often without ever having read the story before (or having read it so long ago, we've forgotten it). Most of the stories are chosen pretty much at random, going for the shortest ones in the books, often surprising ourselves by how good (or mediocre) what we've just read is. So these stories aren't necessarily the best, or the ones we'd choose for an anthology, or even the most representative selections from our chosen authors.

The authors we read depend a lot on what we have at hand and are not meant to be a democratic sampling of the world's innumerable authors, ancient or modern. Since we are sadly monolingual and limited to English, we rely on authors writing in English or authors available in translation. We realize we are not the multiracial multilingual multicultural melting pot literature really is, but we do the best we can with our small library (yes, we own all these books).

Don't be surprised if the miniature story descriptions we provide sometimes "give away" more of a story's plot than you might ordinarily want or need. Nevertheless, hearing a story is different from reading a story, and when hearing a story without having read it before, it often helps to have some general idea of what the story and its plot are about and what they entail, since it's easy to get lost in the sentences when you can't flip back a page or two just to check something. If you really want to be completely surprised, don't read the summaries! (They are not provided by our guest readers, by the way, but by our understaffed staff.)

In general, it takes us about twenty minutes every other day to maintain this site, so the content here is no more than that which twenty minutes can allow. Although our "readership" doesn't even approach that of truly popular podcasts, we are incredibly pleased to find people from all over the earth coming to this site. We are totally surprised to find ourselves sometimes being talked about out there (or in there) in cyberspace, and we are enormously grateful for the kind words and "return customers." This was a site that happened with absolutely no forethought, just a whim to experiment one chilly day last March, and we don't know how much longer we'll last, but in the meantime, we very much enjoy this opportunity to (re)introduce the post-literary world to some wonderful literature. Thanks again!

"The Kiss" by Angela Carter

Take a trip to the center of Asia, to ancient Samarkand, where the Uzbeks dress in brilliant silks and bright lilies and tulips grow among the mountain rocks. Or at least they do in Angela Carter's imagination, in this wee story about the conqueror Tamburlaine (Tamerlane) and his beautiful and clever wife. There may or may not be a kiss involved. Read by Scoot.

Fairy tales, tall tales, ghost stories, myths, and legends were the domain of the Englishwoman Angela Carter's many short stories and novels. It might be reductivist to call her worldview "feminist," though that's part of it--she was a true humanist as well, in love with the imaginary creations of people across the globe. We here at "Stories to Go" are still waiting to see The Company of Wolves, the movie based on one of Carter's reappraisals of the Brothers Grimm, though we actually did meet her, sort of, in a real building in a real town a long time ago. She had amazing long silver hair.

"The Departure of the Shadow" by Guillaume Apollinaire

A young woman dies and it's all because she lost her shadow. Oh well, her lover was tired of her, anyway. It's easy to label stories such as this modernist and "surrealist" because after all Apollinaire called his work that himself, but there's something of an old-fashioned folk tale, as well, in this short piece translated by Ron Padgett. Read by Scoot.

No, Guillaume Apollinaire wasn't really French, at least by ancestry and birth. (He was really Wilhelm Albert Vladimir Apollinaris de Kostrowicki, born in Rome, the son of a Polish countess and an Italian-Swiss nobleman.) And no, he didn't steal the Mona Lisa, though the French police once arrested him for that. (It was some other anarchist, wasn't it?) Yes, he did coin the word "surrealism" and had a profound influence as well on the cubist movement. But no, he never publicly admitted he wrote the racy novels that were banned in France until 1970, but, alas, yes, he did die of the flu during the 1918 pandemic, at the age of 38, and so wouldn't have been able to enjoy the profits for long, anyway.

"The Scotty Who Knew Too Much" by James Thurber

Knowing too much can sometimes be as bad as knowing too little. A small but would-be-tough dog finds that out in this second of our Thurber offerings. Read by Stephen McCauley.

Is Sex Necessary? was James Thurber's first book (written with E. B. White), published in 1929; he continued to write humorous stories for children and adults up until his death in 1961. Incidentally, Thurber was partially blinded by a blow from an arrow shot at him by his brother when they were boys, so always listen to your mother.

Rumor has it that Stephen McCauley is very popular in France. He is owned by a small but very tough dog named Woodles.

"Leave-taking" by Giorgio Manganelli

Here's our gift to all you graduating seniors (whether it's from high school, college, or the school of hard knocks) out there this month: Before suffering the indignity of birth, a wistful soul addresses his comrades and bids farewell. Both a pastiche of the typical valedictory speech and a metaphysical exercise, this story has an unexpected bitter edge. Read by Scoot.

Though widely known throughout Europe, the Italian Giorgio Manganelli, who died fifteen years ago, is still little-known elsewhere. Noted art critic and translator Henry Martin has recently introduced English-speaking audiences to this author, whose philosophical fiction and critical philosophy and philosophical criticism includes Centuria, a collection of one-hundred "ouroboric novels." (Fortunately, each of these novels is only two pages long.) Long live the difficult avant-garde writer and long live Manganelli!

"Night Walk" by Isak Dinesen

Imagine a self-willed insomnia so powerful, so maddening that it leads you to desperate measures--and a last, feverish scene that might be a divine revelation or an insidious nightmare. The engima of an art student who is stricken by his master's death is Dinesen's own, for us to ponder. Read by Scoot.

Isak Dinesen was of course really Karen Blixen (or perhaps we should say Karen Blixen was really Isak Dinesen), who traveled from Denmark to Kenya to world fame as a spinner of tales which seem both ancient and ageless. Whether in her memoirs (such as Out of Africa) or her fiction (such as "Babette's Feast"), she maintains an elegant, somewhat detached poise that is classical in its proportions and yet very modern in its sensibilites--at least, that's what our inner critic with the hoity-toity attitude tells us. Listen on...

"The Darling" by Anton Chekhov

"The Darling" is one of this prolific writer's most celebrated short stories--and he wrote hundreds of good ones. Translated by Constance Garnett, this is a sad, wry, even touching story about a woman who needs a man in her life to know what she thinks. Read by Jonathan Strong.

The Russian writer Anton Pavlovich Chekhov combined the careers of writer, playwright, and doctor--no wonder he died so young. More than a century later, people are still reading his books and attending his plays. No doubt you've done one or the other or both. In many ways, his plain-spoken, down-to-earth stories influenced the writers who came in his wake, all those who believed presenting realistic slices of life more interesting and compelling than manufactured plots.

"Mummy to the Rescue" by Angus Wilson

Nurse has a difficult case: her charge is out of control and likes to bite. Celia's guardians, her grandparents, don't know what to do with her, either, in this strange and surprising little story. Read by Scoot.

A South African childhood, an education in England, a wartime job as a code-breaker, a postwar job as a librarian, and success as a writer of fiction which perhaps owes more to the Victorians than to the Modernists all made Sir Angus Wilson the man he was. Much of his work was satirical of "Anglo-Saxon attitudes" from the beginning of the twentieth century all the way up to the 1980's; he also wrote biographies of Kipling and Dickens. He was considered an important enough writer by his English admirers to be knighted in 1980, and he died in his beloved Suffolk in 1991.

"From the Fifteenth District" by Mavis Gallant

If the dead haunt the living, it stands to reason that the living haunt the dead. There, we've given away the "gimmick" to this story, but that doesn't matter; the humor and emotional impact of this story alone is worth the reading (or listening). Read by Elizabeth Leavell.

Born in Montreal in 1922, Mavis Gallant has lived in Europe since 1950 and has been publishing stories, novels, and nonfiction ever since--dozens of her stories have appeared in The New Yorker alone. She is considered a true innovator of the modern short story and one of Canada's chief literary exports to the world. It is said that she reads newspapers in four languages every morning, but maybe that's just to make the rest of us look inadequate.

Like Mavis Gallant, Elizabeth Leavell is an expat of sorts herself--a southerner who now makes her home among the yankees. She teaches and tutors at Tufts University and writes an occasional mystery novel (under assumed names, of course). She is currently bringing up Dora, who recently graduated summa cum laude from her dog obedience class.