by Smiling Philly… All I remember is that the sign above the door said MASSAGE—plain as day—and boy was I ever in need of one. I had a crick in my neck so bad, my head felt like it was screwed on sideways. So I plopped down my $200 (a little pricey for a massage,…
First published in Norway in 1890, Hunger probes the depths of consciousness with frightening and gripping power. Contemptuous of novels of his time and what he saw as their stereotypical plots and empty characters, Knut Hamsun embarked on “an attempt to describe the strange, peculiar life of the mind, the mysteries of the nerves in…
by Crying in His Beer Philly… I first saw him sitting there at the bar all alone. He was handsome: clean cut, sporting a turtle neck and blazer, looking very much like the all-American boy. I would soon find out that wasn’t the case at all. The year was 1978. Happy Days was the top-rated…
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Slant Books USA – Novels, SS, Non-fiction, Memoir, Essay, Poetry slantbooks.com slantbooks.com/contact/manuscript-submission-guidelines info@slantbooks.org Slant is an independent, not-for-profit literary press specializing in fiction, poetry, creative non-fiction, philosophy, theology, and belles lettres. Slant books are marked by the kind of meticulous craft and passion for language that are harder and harder to come by in our…
Steppenwolf, by Herman Hesse, takes me back to my college days when I first was introduced to the likes of him, Knut Hamsun, Celine, Nikolai Gogol, and Ken Keesey. Even reading it today, I’m taken back to collegial times. Some years ago the Steppenwolf, who was then approaching fifty, called on my aunt to inquire…
#thefuckmachine #charlesbukowski the fuck machine by charles bukowski it was a hot night in Tony’s. you didn’t even think of fucking. just drink cool beer. Tony coasted a couple down to me and Indian Mike, and Mike had the money out. I let him buy the first round. Tony rang it up, bored, looked around…
A Box to Hide In by James Thurber Published in the print edition of the January 24, 1931, issue. James Thurber, who died in 1961, was a cartoonist, a writer, a journalist, and a playwright. This story opens with a man asking a grocery clerk for a box – one large enough to crawl…
by Freaky Philly… I went down to the bank the other day to cash my paycheck and what I found was as hysterical as it was bizarre. I didn’t know the bank had suddenly turned into Comedy Central. I first noticed something wrong when I approached the teller. She was laughing her head off when…
by Stage-4 Philly… My dad died from cancer. My two uncles died from cancer. My granddad, too. So you can imagine my annoyance when I started feeling tired all the time, then coughing and wheezing and spitting up blood. No, sir. I wasn’t getting cancer, too. Not me. In fact, it was right then and…
