It’s three in the morning, the orange sulfur lamps bleach the black sky, and for a moment I think it’s the sun rising over the skyline, but then the darkness recedes back into my vision. It’s always night here; this place never sleeps . . .
Brigid Quinlan clutched the corduroy sleeve of Russell Townsend’s blazer and sneered at the herd of journalists being restrained by two burly policemen. She smiled smugly as she and Townsend breezed past them. “Fuck you all,” she whispered under her breath . . .
I had talked myself into a luxurious three-bedroom apartment in a classic Tudor building in Jersey City. It was 1969. Back then, a suit and a little grooming would suffice if accompanied by a few months’ rent . . .
Robbing the liquor store went well. Took less than a minute. Alex didn’t even need to shoot his gun at all . . .
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 . . .
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!
Kelleher ran towards Nathan’s, Coney Island’s legendary wiener wonderland. The Ukrainian’s final fetid breath was still stinging his nostrils . . .
Learn more about CLMP, cosponsors of The Literary Mews: Discussing Diaspora.