The wild light of dusk laid everywhere, permeating the gaps between buildings and forcing itself high across the bowl of the sky so that one felt weighted down with all the colors, filled in with the sun’s last stand on this face of the earth. He’d left his uncle in his office closing down […]
Nothing ever works out how you plan. That’s an old trick that ticks and trickles relevance to the point we hate it deep down for proving true. Because that chaos is an integral part of being we also harbor elaborate dreams and plan lofty ends for ourselves, acting them out even while knowing they will […]
As he neared the wharf dock, he could tell his uncle would be free. He didn’t know what time it was, but he guessed he’d got up sometime past noon and the market had by now wound down completely. He hoped his uncle was still there, as the only people who usually stuck around were […]
I The boy woke up to the bread man’s song, blaring distorted from the loudspeaker’s funnel haphazardly attached to the roof rack by cut up and twisted coat hangers. He was sweaty, caught in the rays of sun broken only by the window bars which cast patterned shadows on the wall behind his head. […]
Tayari Jones’ novel Silver Sparrow tells itself in memory and present, retrospect and retelling. The prose simply happens. It slips underneath and into you. Moves you from inside. Poised in history but set in the intimacy of individuals, Jones calls forward icons and minutiae with equal reverie. Her details are invocations, passages through which characters […]
