Рон Рэш - The Best American Short Stories 2018

You can’t rape a .38. I first saw that on a vintage photo of a protest march, but I’ve since seen it a number of places, including on advertisements for personal weapons. How strange it was, I thought, the way violence unfolds on both mass and individual scale, how the small violence of a single victim and perpetrator can reflect larger patterns and social values. How rape is a tool in an ongoing war against women. I wanted to write a story about a woman enmeshed in violence, who could not, no matter what, disentangle herself from it, because none of us can.

ESMÉ WEIJUN WANGIS the author of the novel The Border of Paradise, which was called a Best Book of 2016 by NPR and one of the 25 Best Novels of 2016 by Electric Literature . She received a 2018 Whiting Award, was named by Granta as one of the “Best of Young American Novelists” in 2017, and is the recipient of the Graywolf Nonfiction Prize for her forthcoming essay collection, The Collected Schizophrenias . Born in the Midwest to Taiwanese parents, she lives in San Francisco, and can be found at esmewang.comand on Twitter @esmewang.

■ The first thing that came to me, with this story, was the singsong rhyme from the very beginning, which led to a few questions: Who is Becky Guo, where is this taking place, and who is telling the story? I wrote most of “What Terrible Thing It Was” in New Orleans in December 2016, right after Trump’s election—it was the beginning of a particular kind of anxiety for myself and most of my loved ones about the country and what was going to be coming next. Part of that felt like paranoia, but a paranoia with far too much truth behind it, which is what led to the inclusion of the narrator’s psychosis and the convergence of her electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) consultation with Election Night. I wanted Wendy to have concerns outside of the election, and she does, but the election in the story and the social concerns surrounding it leave their fingerprints all over that day and her memories of Becky’s murder. I consider it as much a story about trauma as anything else, and a narrative of how new traumas tend to revive old ones.

ADICHIE, CHIMAMANDA NGOZI,

Details. McSweeney’s Quarterly, no. 50.

ALEXIE, SHERMAN

A Vacuum Is a Space Entirely Devoid of Matter. Narrative Magazine .

BERNARD, REBECCA

This Is Us Being Alive. Meridian , no. 38.

BOYLE, T. C.

Warrior Jesus. Narrative Magazine .

BROWN, JASON

Instructions to the Living from the Condition of the Dead. Missouri Review , vol. 40, no. 1.

BYNUM, SARAH SHUN-LIEN

Julia and Sunny. Ploughshares , vol. 43, no. 2.

Likes. The New Yorker , October 9.

CARSON, ANNE

Eddy. Paris Review , no. 221.

CELONA, MARJORIE

Counterblast. Southern Review , vol. 53, no. 2.

CLINE, EMMA

Northeast Regional. The New Yorker, April 10.

CROUSE, DAVID

A Wrong in the World. Sycamore Review , vol. 28, issue 2.

DJANIKIAN, ARIEL

The Assailant. Alaska Quarterly Review , vol. 34, nos. 1 & 2.

DOKEY, RICHARD

The Good Earth Grocery. AlaskaQuarterly Review , vol. 33, nos. 3 & 4.

EHTESHAM-ZADEH, SUZI

The Baboon. Fiction International , no. 50.

EISENBERG, EMMA COPLEY

Sundays. Electric Literature , no. 287.

EISMAN, BEN

Goombahs. Sewanee Review , vol. CXXV, no. 3.

EKWUYASI, FRANCESCA

Children of the Light Fellowship. Transition , no. 123.

ESCOFFERY, JONATHAN

In Flux. Passages North , no. 38.

FAJARDO-ANSTINE, KALI

All Her Names. The American Scholar , Summer 2016.

FERRIS, JOSHUA

Life in the Heart of the Dead. Ploughshares , vol. 43, no. 1.

FOOT, KIM COLEMAN

How to Kill Gra’ Coleman and Live to Tell About It (Vauxhall, NJ c. 1949). Missouri Review, vol. 40, no. 3.

GARSON, SCOTT

West Seventh and Burn Hill Road. Threepenny Review , no. 152.

GIDDINGS, MEGAN

Brittle. Arts and Letters , no. 34.

GILBERT, DAVID

Underground. The New Yorker , February 6.

GOODMAN, ALLEGRA

F.A.Q.s. The New Yorker , September 11.

GREENFELD, KARL TARO

We Not Die. Kenyon Review, vol. XXXIX, no. 5.

GREENMAN, BEN

Right Angles. ZYZZYVA , no. 109.

GROFF, LAUREN

Dogs Go Wolf. The New Yorker , August 28.

GYASI, YAA

Leaving Gotham City. Granta, no. 139.

HAGENSTON, BECKY

In the Museum of Tense Moments. Greensboro Review , no. 102.

HAN, AH-REUM

The Ninki-Nanka. StoryQuarterly , no. 50.

HENDERSON, SMITH

Muscles. Ploughshares , vol. 43, no. 1.

HOFFMAN, DUSTIN M.

Scraps on Fire. Washington Square Review , no. 39.

HUNT, SAMANTHA

A Love Story. The New Yorker , May 22.

HUYNH, PHILIP

The Forbidden Purple City. Event , vol. 46, no. 2.

ISKANDRIAN, KRISTEN

The Taster. Ploughshares , vol. 43, no. 1.

JAMES, TANIA

The Liberator. Freeman’s , Fall.

JOHNSON, DANA

Like Other People. ZYZZYVA, no. 11.

JONES, MATT

The Changeling. Ruminate , no. 45.

JULY, MIRANDA

The Metal Bowl. The New Yorker , September 4.

KHONG, RACHEL

My Dear You. Tin House , vol. 18, no. 4.

KINDERVATTER-CLARK, CAITLIN

Runway. Alaska Quarterly Review , vol. 34, nos. 1 & 2.

KUMARASAMY, AKIL

New World. Harper’s , August.

LACHAPELLE, MARY

Saab Story. Passages North , no. 38.

LANSBURGH, MATTHEW

Outside Is the Ocean. Ecotone , no. 23.

LAVALLE, VICTOR

Spectral Evidence. Ploughshares , vol. 43, no. 2.

LEE, HELEN ELAINE

Blood Knot. Ploughshares , vol. 43, no. 1.

LEEGANT, JOAN

The Book of Splendor. Ascent .

LI, YIYUN

On the Street Where You Live. The New Yorker , January 9.

LOPEZ, BARRY

The Race Goes to the Swiftest. Iowa Review , vol. 46, no. 3.

MACHADO, CARMEN MARIA

Blur. Tin House , vol. 18, no. 4.

Eight Bites. Gulf Coast , vol. 28, no. 2.

MACKIN, WILL

Crossing the River No Name. The New Yorker , June 5 & 12.

MAHAJAN, KARAN

The Anthology. Granta , no. 139.

MAKSIK, ALEXANDER

The Old Masters. Sewanee Review, vol. CXXV, no. 3.

MARCUS, BEN

Blueprints for St. Louis. The New Yorker , October 2.

MCCRACKEN, ELIZABETH

A Walk-Through Human Heart. Zoetrope: All-Story , vol. 20, no. 4.

MCGRANAHAN, MAUREEN

Stylites Anonymous. Cincinnati Review , vol. 14, no. 1.

MCGRAW, ERIN

Ava Gardner Goes Home. Sewanee Review , vol. CXXV, no. 2.

MCNETT, MOLLY

The Final Words to the Emperor Caesar, Son of the God Trajan, from His Young Favorite, Atinous. Fifth Wednesday , no. 20.

MITCHELL, ANDREW

Midnight Drives. Ploughshares , vol. 43, no. 2.

Going North. Gulf Coast , vol. 28, no. 2.

MOFFETT, KEVIN

City of Trees. LitMag , no. 1.

NUNEZ, SIGRID

The Blind. Paris Review , no. 222.

NWACHUKWU, IHEOMA

Urban Gorilla. Southern Review , vol. 53, no. 2.

OGUNYEMI, OMOLOLA IJEOMA

Jollof Rice and Revolutions. Ploughshares , vol. 43, no. 2.

OHLIN, ALIX

Quarantine. The New Yorker , January 30.