Mark Dunn - American Decameron

1946 ENNEADIC IN IOWA

A Dutch-American mathematics professor, having lost his family in the Holocaust, finds in his ongoing calculation of pi something that betrays his belief in disbelief.

1947 RACIST IN TENNESSEE

Memphis’s censor czar, exercising bigoted and sometimes ridiculously arbitrary control over the movies that will be seen within his jurisdiction, entertains a visiting delegation of movie house managers hoping to convince him to soften his heavy-handed authority.

1948 HAUNTED IN CONNECTICUT

One of the men digging a well for a World War II veteran’s new house in Connecticut bears a haunting resemblance to a soldier who saved the man’s life during the Bataan death march.

1949 BALL CHANGING IN MISSISSIPPI

A Saturday morning kiddy talent show broadcast takes a few unexpected comical twists and turns before the winners are finally crowned.

1950 POIKILOTHERMAL IN WEST VIRGINIA

Snowbound with his fiancée and her family, a disturbed young man wrestles with sadistic impulses that are ultimately his undoing.

1951 PSITTICINE IN PENNSYLVANIA

A blind woman discovers the troubling truth about her friend’s potty-mouthed parrot.

1952 DOUBLY UXORICIDAL IN COLORADO

Separated-from-birth twin brothers discover one another by chance and take advantage of their good fortune by plotting crisscross murders of their respective problem spouses.

1953 PHARISAICAL IN WYOMING

A traveling tent show revivalist preacher becomes self-appointed and unwelcome negotiator on behalf of the hostages in a bank holdup.

1954 FAMISHED IN TEXAS

A self-absorbed suburban wife can’t be bothered to help her emotionally fragile, literally starving aunt, even though it means losing her husband and daughter.

1955 AGITATED IN ALABAMA

Riding the bus in Montgomery, two white female friends find little common ground in how they view the city’s black bus boycott.

1956 DISCREETLY SILENT IN MONTANA

A doctor and a deputy sheriff must decide what to tell the families of the two closeted teenaged boys whose lives came to a tragic end in a late-night automobile crash.

1957 LOYAL IN UTAH

Faculty and staff of a Presbyterian boarding school are asked to sign a loyalty oath as a condition of their employment.

1958 EXPLOSIVE IN SOUTH CAROLINA

A story told in reverse about the accidental dropping of an atomic bomb (sans nuclear components) on a rural community.

1959 TIGHT IN NEW YORK

It’s New Year’s Eve in Westchester and the babysitter’s balking; she refuses to get in the car with her employer, who’s started his potable-partying a little earlier than usual.

1960 SMILING IN CALIFORNIA

A failed writer decides to end his life by jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge. An unlikely heroine makes it her job to stop him.

1961 UNLITERATE IN NEW HAMPSHIRE

A woman buys a first edition of The Joy of Cooking at a neighborhood yard sale and discovers an uncashed check inside.

1962 THROWN A CURVE BALL IN NEW YORK

As a boy listens to the very first Mets game alongside his stepfather, to whom he has become closely attached, he learns that his mother and stepfather are divorcing.

1963 ESTIVATING IN NEW JERSEY

An appliance salesman discovers an unexpected link between himself and two children who come in each afternoon to watch cartoons in the store in which he works.

1964 NEARLY INTERRED IN ALASKA

In the aftermath of the great Alaskan Good Friday earthquake, a frightened babysitter is punished for her selfish cowardice by the children in her care, who thoroughly despise her.

1965 MISTRYSTED IN NEW YORK

An Affair to Remember-like rendezvous between two World War II lovers at Grand Central Terminal is impeded by a citywide blackout.

1966 OUTRAGED IN IDAHO

An elementary school concert tribute to the popular musical The Sound of Music hits a major snag when the teacher planning the event wants to include a song from the original stage version that few are familiar with — one with a distasteful message.

1967 GOING THE VOLE IN NEVADA

A young man decides to put all the money he and his wife have on one life-changing roll of the roulette wheel.

1968 HIERATIC IN KANSAS

On the night of the Miss America pageant, a wife, husband, and their old friend, a priest, place the feminist movement and the general state of relations between men and women into a decidedly personal context.

1969 PARENTAL IN ARIZONA

Every summer a wealthy couple takes their kids on a joyful “travelcading” adventure through the American West, but this year is different; half-sisters of the father find a fly in the ointment — a fly that they put there themselves.

1970 SKIRTING THE ISSUE IN WEST VIRGINIA

A department store buyer has a personal reason for bemoaning the foisting of the unflattering “midi skirt” on the female American consumer.

1971 BIBLIOPHILIC IN ALABAMA

Members of a family of voracious readers on beach vacation work in concert to use their book smarts to save a drowning fellow vacationer.

1972 PRECIPITATE IN ILLINOIS

A woman at a mall witnesses a child abduction and knows that she is the only person who can save the little girl.

1973 VENGEFUL IN MARYLAND

While waiting in a long gas line, an ex-wife has the opportunity to exact revenge on her former husband.

1974 VICINAL IN TENNESSEE

Twin brothers spend the night of their eighteenth birthday with a neighbor: Elvis Presley.

1975 PHYSICALLY CANDID IN LOUSIANA

Two patio paviors must contend with a provocatively ecdysiastic lady of the house.

1976 THROTTLED IN ARKANSAS AND OKLAHOMA

Feuding sisters drive from Tennessee to Oklahoma to celebrate their mother’s birthday in separate cars, though fate refuses to keep them apart.

1977 RECTALLY REMUNERATIVE IN ILLINOIS

Big changes are discussed in the boardroom of a company that has made its reputation manufacturing products best not discussed in mixed company.

1978 TRI-TOASTED IN MISSOURI

Three thirty-something lawyers come together to raise a glass of Johnnie Walker to someone they all have in common and each dearly loved, though the feeling wasn’t reciprocal.

1979 GOING THROUGH THE MILL IN TEXAS

The story of a hapless, antisocial Dallas family told through documents filed in a Dallas County Justice Court.

1980 RENOVATIVE IN TEXAS

A boy remembers the summer he spent helping his step-grandfather renovate a house and learns that family isn’t always defined by blood.

1981 SELF-ANOINTED ABOVE, LET’S SAY, OKLAHOMA

A woman confronts a famous female televangelist on a plane, accusing her and her husband of keeping the woman’s mentally unstable daughter from getting proper medical treatment.

1982 REUNITED IN MISSOURI

Those gathered at a thirty-year high school reunion wonder if the one among them who has just recently been released from prison will make an appearance, and if he does, what will be the consequences?

1983 ETCHED IN STONE IN WASHINGTON, D.C.

A man visits the Vietnam Memorial on his late friend’s birthday and finds his friend’s kid brother there, ready to topple the man’s heart-object from his pedestal.