story: Live Life King-Sized
author: Hester Kaplan
year: 1998
where: JFK, Etihad lounge
note: recording hiatus, apologies
a line: “I sent Jensen another beer, which he received with a verdictless shrug, and I turned on the ceiling fan to blow the death smell of Henry Blaze out to sea .”
story: The Hermit’s Story
author: Rick Bass
year: 1998
where: Burjeel cafe, English breakfast tea
note: read twice
a line: “A cold snap comes in October, freezes a skin of ice over the lake — it’s got to be a shallow one, almost a marsh.”
story: One Day A Week
author: Mohammad Al Murr
year: 2008
where: Reem Island after the blackout
note: I can only say ‘Rashidiya’ like the metro man
a line: “Five days a week she passed in a torment of anticipation.”
story:The Best Girlfriend You Never Had
author: Pam Houston
year: 1999
where: home, wooden kitchen table
note: such long sentences
a line: “I pointed myself west down the endless two lanes of Highway 50 — The Loneliest Road in America say the signs that rise out of the desert on either side of it — all the way across Utah and Nevada to this white shining city on the bay.”
story: Flower Hunters
author: Lauren Groff
year: 2016
where: kitchen table, cold tea
note: female friendships, the invisible shipwrecks of life
a line: “She is frightened that there aren’t many people on the earth she can stand.”
story: Friend of my Youth
author: Alice Munro
year: 1991
where: pool, Khorfakkan
note: a Munro story is total immersion
a line: “God rewarded lust with dead babies, idiots, harelips and withered limbs and clubfeet.”
story: In the House of the Jackal
author: C Pam Zhang
year: 2016
where: between meetings, Saadiyat “Happiness” Island
note: a new voice for me
a line: “Try to imagine a whole country past your walls.”
