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A Japanese Heart
Zak, I am happy that you can attend my wedding as the best man. As we discussed the other day, it is very important that you behave appropriately with my bride’s family and her guests. People will...
View ArticleThis Week of Short Fiction
New motherhood: it’s common but totally strange, completely natural yet weirdly alien, a beautiful miracle and absolutely disgusting. It can also have some strong effects on a woman’s perception of...
View ArticleThe Saturday Rumpus Essay: The Kill Shot
Air Force One landed at Love Field on what began as a gray and cold November day. By mid-morning it was springlike, skies shining bright and blue. The presidential limousine’s Plexiglas bubble-top had...
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Breaking and Burning
The week after we get home from the hospital I spend every second I can sitting in front of the computer searching for information, anything that can help us, tears streaming down my face most of the...
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The Sunday Rumpus Essay: Through the Vitrine
We called it the Dead Dads Club, something that I’d never say now. And they were a group of women that wouldn’t usually ask me to join anything. They were confident, bright-eyed, even in grief, with...
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This Week in Short Fiction: Goodnight, Beautiful Women by Anna Noyes
If you’ve ever stood on a high ledge and felt the inexplicable urge to jump, or ruined a perfectly good relationship for reasons you can’t define, or felt like an imposter in your own life, you’ll...
View ArticleThe Saturday Rumpus Essay: DNA
It’s just dinner. It’s just the Lumberyard, a beer pub. It’s just the last day of the semester. I want a glass of wine. Erik wants a beer. The kids want root beer. I pick the kids up from school. While...
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The Rumpus Review of The Narrow Door by Paul Lisicky
I like being able to review a book long after it’s come out. That way I don’t have to rush myself while reading it. I don’t have to watch it come to an end before I’m ready. I think most of us like to...
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The Diary of Anaïs Nin While Binge-Watching Broad City
Season 1, Episodes 1–3Ah, to see New York, city of life and love. How I long for it, city of neurosis! But wherever are our heroines, Abbi and Ilana, on that phallic island of Manhattan? Astoria,...
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The Last Book I Loved: Abbott Awaits
It is the last day of summer. The neighbor girl has been riding her bike across our sidewalk, back and forth, every day since April. Starting at the first thaw, I’d see her in her hoodie, building...
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The Saturday Rumpus Essay: The Leaving Deficit
Barbara and I exchange gifts at her door before I tell her why I left my husband. I give her a silver ring with a large, handcrafted blooming flower. She holds the three grams in her hand like it’s...
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Big Ideas, Little Cartoons
Related Posts:More Money, (Not) More ProblemsThe Saturday Rumpus Essay: Valuation MethodsColorful LanguageThe Rumpus Interview with Shulem DeenThe Upper Far East
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The Rumpus Interview with Ann Packer
Ann Packer has distinguished herself as a chronicler of emotional nuance. She writes from the home front, holding relationships and family up to the bright sun, reaching beneath dark foundations to...
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A Case, Diagnosis, and Its Findings
This year, in the days before the diagnosis, while I dragged myself from appointment to appointment, my husband, Preston, ambled along with me. He brought books to read in the waiting room. He called...
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The Life Jacket
Born from a watery world, you met your family: Father of Vodka, Mother of Depression, Tender Sister. Born into a family of chemical cocktail mismatches. No sloppy diaphragm. No bargaining chip from...
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The Insanity of Eating
On a day when I wanted to throttle the first therapist treating my binge eating disorder, I ran from his office and down Beacon Street as fast as my 300-pound body could fly, to a Boston taqueria...
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The Mortgage Arrangement
The day my husband and I told our nine-year-old son we were separating, he went into his bedroom and pushed all the furniture in front of the door. The two of us stood in the hallway and listened to...
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The Rumpus Interview with Paula Whyman
It’s rare, but sometimes—if I’m very lucky—a fictional character becomes so real to me I feel as if I’ve made an actual friend. This is what happened to me with Miranda Weber, the protagonist of each...
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The Sunday Rumpus Interview: Anne Raeff
I met Anne Raeff in 1989, shortly after I moved to New Mexico from Minnesota to attend graduate school. Anne had moved there around the same time, to escape New York. A mutual friend, Cynthia, thought...
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The Sunday Rumpus Essay: The Year of Light and Dark
It is July 2015, and in the doorway of Education and Hope in Quetzaltenago, Guatemala, Julie Coyne is doling out hugs and kisses. It’s the kind of scene—a white middle-aged woman embracing one...
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