The Long Story
Fiction
longstorylitmag.com
"THE LONG STORY is the only literary magazine in America devoted strictly to long stories. We have a national and international circulation and publish stories of 8,000 - 20,000 words for serious, educated readers. Founded in 1982 and published once a year,The Long Story is an independent magazine both in its editorial policy and in its freedom from institutional backing. We prefer stories about common folks (as opposed to the rich and powerful) and in general look for a perspective on current society—one that demonstrates awareness that, for example, rock ’n’ roll is not the only music, that capitalism is not the only possible social arrangement, that self-glorification is not the only way to pursue happiness. Such distancing comes (though not exclusively) from knowledge gained through implicit knowledge of the Western humanistic tradition along with interest in the same themes that engaged the great writers of the past."
Available issues (click to explore):
Pages (PDF): 167
Publisher: The Long Story
Purchase includes: PDF
IN THIS ISSUE
“How the Flying Fish Got Its Wings” by Jeff Ronci is a parable/fable about slavery and freedom (and much more). Babafemi, his African name which means boy who is loved by his father, is a slave in Haiti where he is called Antoine. After a particularly brutal whipping, he goes to the beach to treat his wounds where he meets a fish that tells him all the sea creature know him to be a kind boy. Later she turns out to be a mermaid, but when he tries to take her with him she gives him a lesson in freedom. § The protagonist in Vincent Panella’s “A Joke But Not a Joke,” is Jason, a man who after his wife died, began living simply, sleeping in his truck, helping out at the local soup kitchen and doing odd jobs. He had learned from his wife that real love was giving and sacrificing and thus he took St. Francis for his model. Then things become complicated when his friends get him a job with a judge and his wife. § “The Reckoning” by Michael Washburn is a cautionary tale about the blood lust raised during a revolution. It’s set in the U.S.A. sometime in the future where the 1% are finally vanquished, but Charlotte, a young idealistic woman begins to have doubts as she witnesses the cruel, savage and sick revenge the revolutionaries mete out. § Nancy Bourne’s “Massive Resistance” is set during the early years of the black struggle for liberation in the South. Roger Nolan, a state senator from Virginia, is running for the U.S. Senate. Although not a racist himself, to win he has to mouth all the usual segregationist stuff. Then the death of his son and what they learn about his life at Harvard causes each member of his family to confront the moral issues raised by the Civil Rights movement. § “The Guest” by Brady Harrison deals with a bizarre incident, namely what the protagonist does after she hits a woman on a stormy winter night: instead of calling the police, she simply drives home into her garage with the woman still trapped in her crushed windshield. Then she calls a male friend and somehow talks him into helping her clean up. The next day she even drives to the store to buy some cigarettes with the woman still in the windshield. A reporter narrates the story. § Gloria Stevenson’s story, “The Pond,” is about love and the jealousy and misunderstandings that can arise in a relationship when the bride discovers a recent photo of a young woman in her house, but it takes the death of a dog to clear up the misunderstandings. § In Drew Thompson’s Cool Hand Bill,” Bill, marrying young and with a child already, is having doubts about life that already seems to be charted out before him. Such doubts are fairly common, of course, but the advice an old man for whom he changed a flat tire on the turnpike gives him about love and how the bad days are nothing compared to the enduring love, opens up a new perspective. § Although Michael Seeley’s“The Grey Shore of Conscience,” is set during the Napoleonic wars where a young midshipman is put on trial for attempted murder of his captain, the story is as new as yesterday in showing the powerful protecting their own without conscience, decency or humanity. § The editorial Prelude discusses some of the major weaknesses of show, don’t tell and discusses how narration can be of critical importance in presenting human reality in its fullness.
Pages (PDF): 177
Publisher: The Long Story
Purchase includes: PDF
IN THIS ISSUE
In E.C. Alvarez’s “The Immigrant” Juan Diego Garcia, the fourteen-year-old protagonist, is smart, resourceful and faithful (especially to his mother). He has to be, for after his parents were deported back to Mexico, he has to survive on the streets alone. § “A Lesser Love” by Dan Malakoff offers a powerful and unsettling look into the life of a South American guerrilla who becomes torn between love and his duty to the revolution. § “Drought” by Carol Wade Lundberg follows Ray Morrison, a lonely widower and retired high school biology teacher and father who is estranged from his children, especially his son. There is a drought at the nearby estuary where he used to collect biological and botanical specimens with his son: its condition is an objective correlative of his mind. Then meeting a former student who asks him for advice to deal with her son gives him an insight into his own life. § Howard Winn’s “Boxcar Beginnings” is set in the time of the Great Depression and delineates the unlikely friendship between Libby, the daughter of the owner of a brickyard, and Greg, the half-black son of a truck driver at the brickyard. § In “Bea and Bruce” by Ann S. Epstein an English woman meets a Canadian soldier during World War II and quickly marries him. When the war is over she finds herself filled with doubts on the ship that is taking her and many other war brides to Canada. § Rayyan Al-Shawaf’s “Who You Are” is set in Beruit, Lebanon in the 1980s during the civil war and the Israeli invasion. Bassam, the narrator Rushdie’s friend, grew up in a Christian orphanage and has an aversion to romantic love. It is a dangerous time to believe “you’re either my brother in religion or an equal in creation,” but Bassam does the decent thing when he helps a wounded soldier found on a street in Beruit and is prepared for the consequences. § Stella, the narrator in Alison Katon’s “Walking to the Bright Land” grows up on an Oklahoma farm and dreams of going to college and then into the wider world, but her father puts obstacles in her way. Sixty years later she remembers her early struggles. § “My Dearest Brother” by William Small is about a brother and sister who were very close as children, but now as a college-aged young man Ellis has to confront and try to help his artistic sister Ansley, who has become mentally ill. § Poems by Laurel Speer, Paul Nelson and William Davey, and an editorial Prelude on Matthew Arnold’s touchstones and their relevance to today round out the issue.
Pages (PDF): 185
Publisher: The Long Story
Purchase includes: PDF
IN THIS ISSUE
“The Care and Feeding of Captive Bears”
by Lucy Simpson
From their recent home in Arizona, Zara, the narrator, and her sister Margaret are bringing Broke, an aged, infirm bear and the last survivor of their father’s private zoo (and also the last link to their past and its tragic end) to an animal sanctuary in Chattanooga.
In William Davey’s “Twelve Horsemen” two thieves in WWII Paris plan to rob a bar until they see the proprietor is a double amputee. Instead they listen to him tell the story of his grandfather’s revenge on Prussian hussars during the Franco-Prussian War, all of which ironically calls into question standards of right and wrong.
Landon Houle, “Orphaned Things,” is the story of Raymond, the son of an atheist snake handler left behind with his grandmother, and Knee, a girl at school who is also fatherless. Raymond has little faith in Jesus but faith his father will return for him. Both long for their lost fathers.
In G.D. McFetridge’s “Little Man” the eponymous character, Little Man, is a deer that first came to the narrator’s mountain cabin as a fawn. A unique story in that except for the narrator there are no other human beings in it, and the antagonist is a mountain lion.
John Wheatcroft, “The Prisoner’s Brother”: Davis Thornton, the Episcopal priest in a Pennsylvania town, reacts angrily when, while having drinks with friends from the church, his wife Nita casually mentions that she’s volunteered to board a visitor to the state prison in town for the night. His reaction to this news is decidedly unchristian and the behavior of the back country hick proves to be a real test of his Christian duty.
In Bruce Douglas Reeves’ “Maggie in Love” the narrator’s grown daughter Maggie and her son live with him after her husband disappeared, but when she takes up art for a career and becomes involved with a handsome, Ayn Rand spouting egoistical male model, she completely falls under his control, eventually even moving to Mexico and leaving her father to raise her son.
The “Afterworld of Samuel Rossi” by Khan Ha is narrated by a stillborn baby, but the story rings with truth and genuineness in every line as the narrator follows his father’s relationship with his Vietnamese language teacher.
Lee Oleson’s “Twenty-First Century City” has a protagonist, Stanley, who has never quite fit in, but when he comes up with the idea of renaming the city he wins a seat on the city council, only to get into trouble for his seeming support of the locked out workers at the local factory.
In Reneé Branum’s “The Lightning Left No Mark” Goose was always told that she was born when her mother was struck by lightning, but a neighboring older boy who has learning disabilities has a secret he’s not supposed to tell.
Poems by Jared Carter and Brian Backstrand round out the issue.
Pages (PDF): 169
Publisher: The Long Story
Purchase includes: PDF
IN THIS ISSUE
“We’re all orphans in a shadow land, lost and abandoned,” Ingbar, the protagonist in Rex Sexton’s “Trouble Town,” thinks as he sits in jail after a fight. A teenaged orphan working in a grungy, coal-infested place, he wants to be an artist. His drawings have already impressed one of his fellow workers, a black man named Leon, who’s passing them on to an art instructor friend. In the meantime, Ingbar lives in a world of predators and prey, trying to survive bullies like Irish Mike.
“The Silent Child” by Joel Harris is narrated by the brother of a retarded sister and dramatizes a family’s love, frustrations, hopes, disappointments and small triumphs dealing with a child “struggling toward an awareness that would always elude her.”
“Judgment Day” by Danielle Metcalf: When a raging fire in rural Nebraska threatens to cause a gas tank to explode and people are evacuated, only Doris Grimmett remains behind. Obsessed with guilt from losing her parents as a child and certain God is angry with her, she awaits her fate, but Officer Sammy Wright, who knew her as a boy, endangers his own life in an effort to save her.
Meagan Ciesla’s “The Tallest Men, the Broadest Shoulders” is a tall tale indeed, an allegory, a fable, where Babe the blue ox coughs up five huge 30 foot Pauls who cut timber very efficiently for a boss afraid of losing them and where “eco-terrorism” offers a strange twist to the narrative.
Ronald M. Gauthier’s “Modern Black Boy” is a story that dramatizes how small individual victories play as large a role in advancing racial justice as mass demonstrations. Joshua Miller, librarian in a suburb of Atlanta, fights to keep open the library used by black people when the town has to economize and finds some surprising allies in this fight.
Tom Yori’s “TnT Moving” offers a picture of working class life appropriately written in a lively vernacular style while dramatizing the ethos of those who find a tough job is a chance to prove themselves.
Mark Rigney’s “Roll With It,” set in northeast Africa in October 1993 (time of Black Hawk Down), follows Sara, a news correspondent, and her male companion, Gil, as they deal with native people, Somalian pirates and American soldiers in an effort to get into Somalia to get a good story.
“Little Alice” by Georgina Phillips is a compelling story that atomizes the way many single women are patronized and often humiliated while simultaneously dramatizing the protagonist’s yearnings and personal dignity.
Poems by Kathy Fitzgerald, Paul Nelson and John Wheatcroft and an editorial Prelude exploring the differences between sociological and humanistic insights round out the issue.
Pages (PDF): 166
Publisher: The Long Story
Purchase includes: PDF
IN THIS ISSUE
Mark Gula’s “Ernesto’s Story” deals with love and undying fidelity. Ernesto first loved Mayela, whose father wanted her to be a nun, then their deformed daughter Angelica and, after Mayela deserts them, he brings all his love and devotion to his daughter and then Felipe. But why are the people in a small town on the coast of Mexico savagely beating Felipe?
Paul Weidner’s “A Tale Told by an Idiot” offers us a marvelous comic story with a rather different first person narrator, one who is having trouble with typing on a computer as he reveals himself to be one of the lowest performers in a traveling circus in France who doesn’t get the respect he deserves.
In William Davey’s “Under the Parasol Pines” Army nurse Jane Barnes, fearing her black market activities during World War II in Algeria might be revealed by a wounded soldier, one Mike Santini, lures him to a isolated cliff overlooking the Mediterranean to accuse him of rape, a capital crime in wartime.
In Gerri Brightwell’s “Waltzing” Jess’s work at a nursing home begins to affect her negatively, making her feel as if life’ s nearly over and everything is useless; she even begins to think she doesn’t love her husband Bruno anymore; but when romance blossoms between a male inmate and a married woman with Alzheimer’s and a domineering husband, she begins to gain some perspective.
Paul Nelson’s “Just for Eggs” is set in a elegiac key. The narrator, who as a Dartmouth graduate is regarded by many in the small coastal town in Maine as an outsider, befriends many of the hard-working and hard-drinking outdoors men of the town. One of them is Mike, a decent man who is both constable and dogcatcher in town, but who in a drunken state serendipitously kills a wife-beater.
In John Preston’s “Everything Important Happens on a Hillside” Vernon and Lillian Pearl Bowles are Kentucky mountain folk, but after Vernon dies, Lillian goes to her sister’s home in Ohio only to grow so homesick for the Kentucky hills that she takes a bus to within 85 miles from home and makes the rest of the journey on foot despite hip pain and an improper proposition.
John Wheatcroft’s “White-Out” is a Kafkaesque and/or Orwellian story told with brilliant detail. I.M. Fels gets an official letter telling him to report to Building 9 where everything is ominously white. He is told to bring his RTL (right to life) card.
“Leaf Curl” by Geoffrey Burns follows Jareb, a fundamentalist who lives in the arid west and always put his trust in God, but when a recession comes and he loses his contractor business and refuses another job because it would require him to join a union, he is forced to work far from home in Nevada; then his wife’s illness back home tests his faith and forces him to reevaluate his notions of what a man is.
An editorial Prelude that discusses two disparate writers—George Orwell and Evelyn Waugh—and two poems by Brian Backstrand round out the issue.
Pages (PDF): 162
Publisher: The Long Story
Purchase includes: PDF
IN THIS ISSUE
Myla Stauber’s “Country of Unknown Origin” traces the lives of two Vietnamese men, a physically crippled cigarette seller and a psychically damaged watch repairman still unable to transcend the memory of his young wife’s fate at the hands of the Americans back in the war. And, yes, a laughing thrush and a dog play a role in the story’s denouement.
Michael Caleb Tasker’s “In the Sweet By and By” takes place in racist 1950s Louisiana where violence is as omnipresent as the air if one happens to be black like the protagonist Avery; that’s why he’s running, running from the angry white men.
River Adams’ “The Long Midnight” relates the story of two survivors who were tortured and abused horribly by Chechen rebels. Nathan’s thesis about the circle of evil (“Pain breeds terror, terror breeds rage, rage breeds revenge. Revenge breeds pain.”) is as philosophically compelling as the protagonists’ suffering while captured in Chechnya.
In “The Betrayal” by Richard Krause Jack Kunkel returns to New York City to visit Ollie, the warm and loving woman who took care of him as a boy after he was placed in an orphanage, only to find her living in a squalid cockroach-infested apartment, exploited by her niece, and suffering from Alzheimer’s: “nobody has established how long a person should live after the dignity goes.”
James Carpenter’s “Reclassified” takes us back to the 1960s when avoiding the draft and stopping the war were the principal concerns of most college students. Despite the seriousness of these issues, the story has marvelous comic touches when the protagonist, after an antiwar demonstration in Washington where he burns his draft card, ends up an induction center.
Barbara Snow’s “Capri” is a story about human solidarity and connectivity. Jen accompanies Kit, her friend recovering from eight months of chemotherapy, to Capri where they befriend Amina, the Nigerian cleaning woman and maid at the place they’re renting, and learn of her courageous and self-sacrificing past that not incidentally plays a role in Kit’s recovery.
In S. L. Ferraro’s “Blood Pressure” Ana is bitten by a dog in New York City just before she has a flight to San Francisco to be with her husband. The rabies shots have to wait until the hospital in Palo Alto where years ago she almost died after a terrible accident. Present and past experiences of vulnerability, objectification and loss of dignity at the hands of those in positiowns of power plague her throughout the day.
In “The Abortionist’s Daughter” by Julie Innis, Marly, a veterinarian, returns home to take care of her aged mother suffering from Alzheimer’s. When younger, her mother was a herbal abortionist and cat lover, so well known that Tom, a young man from the university, is making a film about her; Marly’s relationship with Tom brings to light the time she tried the herbal teas and the consequences.
“After the Accident” by Karyn Wergland: Three years after her son suffocated in a cedar chest used to store toys, Andrea, her marriage destroyed by this accident, finds herself working at a daycare in Boston where the responsibility of caring for children force her to seek the strength and courage to transcend her self-doubts and self-blame.
Poems by Jared Carter and John Wheatcroft and an editorial Prelude that uses Burns’s “To a Mouse” as a launching pad for a discussion on the centrality of empathy in life round out the issue.
Pages (PDF): 162
Publisher: The Long Story
Purchase includes: PDF
IN THIS ISSUE
When Mrs. Czernicki asks her black teenaged neighbor, Johnquell, to move a heavy shelf upstairs in Jennifer Morales’s “Heavy Lifting,” a tragic accident occurs that becomes the occasion to explore the isolation of the elderly and the potential for intergenerational and interracial friendships.
In “A Chilly Peace” by Linda Behrendt, Leo Daluski is a Vietnam veteran struggling to rediscover the thread that gives balance and texture to life. His sister, Charlene, and niece, Madeline, are what hold his world together as he seeks to find again the calm of routine and normal things, but when they move away Leo must decide whether he will continue to engage his family for support or accept a peace of mind that instead comes only from retreat.
Forest Arthur Ormes, “Deportee”: Courtney Gerard, an orphaned alcoholic dry for twenty years, traumatized Korean War veteran, and orphaned son of a Jewish father and Czech Catholic mother, has a more than the ordinary share of inherited demons as he takes a trip to Europe with his wife to search for his roots.
“I understand the comfort of dogs,” the narrator in Clara Stites’s “A Story for My Father,” says, and in the course of delineating her relationships with her long-estranged father and dying husband, one of the main things that holds her together is the joy that dogs, living in the present, bring into human lives.
Jamey Gallagher’s “A Closer Walk with Thee” dramatizes a terrible situation—a mother awaiting her son’s execution for murder— with deeply felt humanity.
Anthony R. Lusvardi’s “One Week in Africa” is a powerful story that enters into one of the dark places in the human soul. Joel, the narrator, accompanies a group of college students on a field trip to Rwanda several years after the 1994 mass killing of hundreds of thousands of Rwanda’s Tutsis by the Hutu dominated government and finds the legacy of that holocaust inescapably omnipresent. Trying to make sense of this horror, at one point he wonders if mankind were put on trial for the Rwandan genocide, the Nazis and all the other horrors of history, could Shakespeare and Botticelli be witnesses for the defense?
Victor Walker’s “Southside Girl” follows Ronnie as she the grows into adulthood caught between the rural life her grandparents knew in Arkansas and the life black people found in the north, and as she enters college she further confronts the momentous changes the Civil Rights movement and Black Liberation were bringing to Afro-Americans.
Poems by William Davey, John Wheatcroft, Jared Carter, Laurel Speer, Kathy Fitzgerald, and Sonja Skarstedt, and an editorial PRELUDE that discusses King Arthur, Henrik Ibsen, William Faulkner, and Emily Dickinson round out this issue.