The Unsettling
The first collection by acclaimed novelist Peter Rock, The Unsettling includes thirteen stories – most of which already published in leading literary journals such as Zoetrope, Tin House, and One Story. Populated by strangers, ghosts, and other shadowy figures whose intentions may or may not be sinister, The Unsettling attends to those startling moments when what we have understood as familiar is suddenly revealed as mysterious and foreign. A lonely man saving library books from an outbreak of mold listens to a coworker’s tale about a blind woman and imbues it with his own sense of romance; a woman drives a Gold Firebird through the desert with a television playing “Rockford Files” reruns on the passenger seat; a girl returns to her childhood home to spy on its new inhabitants, not realizing they are aware of her surveillance; and a Poe-obsessed medical examiner constructs ornate scenes in an attempt to provoke hope in the forgotten lives of a dark and desperate city. Told through Rock’s imaginative and wholly original voice, these are haunted tales about fascination, transformation, and the relationship between the two.
MacAdam/Cage
The Silent Men
The last diners left the restaurant around midnight, and it was usually after one o’clock before Kristine, a waitress, headed home. Some nights she caught a cab, but it was better to walk, to unwind the pressures—the timing, the money changing hands, all the expectations and personalities—so that she would be able to sleep. Tonight, as she walked past the Liberty Bell, down through Old City, she could hear trucks rattling off the Ben Franklin Bridge, crossing the Delaware, and distant sirens, ignored car alarms. The darkness made the hot, thick air feel dirty.
Her apartment was on the fourth floor, and there was no elevator. She took off her shoes before climbing the stairs. When she unlocked the door, there was no one inside to meet her; there were no messages on the machine. She started to fill the bathtub before she turned on the lights, before she sifted through the credit card offers that constituted her mail. She poured herself a glass of wine, wished she’d thought to bum a cigarette from someone before she’d left work, and stood in the living room for a moment, listening to the water splashing in the bathroom. The empty echo of her apartment, the cleanswept and shining hardwood floors, pleased her. (continued...)
Thrill (originally published by Willamette Week)
Ahn has never liked the thrill rides; being in the grip of a machine does not appeal to him. Now, with the baby, there's reason to let his wife, Sumiko, ride by herself. It gives her pleasure.
The baby is just over a year old, and heavy, in the carrier on Ahn's back. They wait next to the Screaming Eagle, a huge wheel with seats on the inside that hangs from a towering metal arm that swings back and forth as it rotates. The ride has not yet started; first, the riders have to take off their shoes. Sumiko waves, her legs dangling from the seat, her bare feet swinging. She is surrounded by overweight teenage girls in midriff-baring shirts, boys with arms already raised, not holding on, eager to demonstrate their bravery. (continued...)