The American walked the ancient Italian countryside on unsteady feet. It was a familiar path, but he had been up very, very late with guests from the States, toasting to liberal optimism with liberal quantities of Tuscan wine. They had, essentially, drunk all night, waiting for election results from the States, which didn’t report until three a.m. Italian time that Barack Obama had become the forty-fourth president of the United States . . .
Johnny was barely fourteen when he started drinking . . .
To celebrate the release of Little Beasts —a powerful debut novel by Matthew McGevna and the latest release from our Kaylie Jones Books imprint — today we’re pleased to feature Matthew McGevna’s story from Long Island Noir, edited by Kaylie Jones.
To celebrate the release of The Anger Meridian, we’re pleased to feature a statement from author Kaylie Jones on creating an unreliable narrator who’s forced to make a life-altering decision.
On a humid mid-July Thursday evening, a young woman in a cream-colored Macy’s pantsuit went into the small bodega on Nostrand and Lexington Avenue (by the twenty-four-hour Laundromat) and walked to the back refrigerator . . .
The moment Elaine walks out of the air-conditioned hospital hallway, she is covered in a sheet of liquid. It is not sweat, but rather condensation from the difference in interior and exterior temperature. A thunderstorm is coming, maybe even a typhoon. The moisture in the air has captured all the smells on the streets. Beneath the pungent aroma of fermented tofu and fish balls, there is the distinct scent of mold from children’s nylon backpacks. Further down the street, there is the body odor of an Indian delivery boy—cumin, the cheap perfume worn by women who disappear into buildings with pink neon lights—green apple, fresh citrus scents from Bergamot oranges and pomelos, and the smell of ocean from the fish stall next door . . .
Join Shannon Holmes as he launches his new novel Caught Up — the latest release from Akashic’s Infamous Books imprint — at the Harlem Book Fair on 7/18!
Download a copy of Long Island Noir — edited by Kaylie Jones, and featuring the story “Gateway to the Stars” by Matthew McGevna — for absolutely free through Sunday, July 12!