Fiction

|| Illustration by Lola Landekic
Where It Is I Come to Pray

From the ongoing series Tabloid Fiction—in which an author chooses from the trashiest, most lurid, or just bizarre stories of the moment and writes a short story inspired by same.

||Pelé at the 1970 World Cup.
The Feint

An excerpt from The Feint, originally published in Brazil as O Drible. An ailing 80-year-old sports columnist tries to build bridges with his estranged son, while remembering the golden age of Brazilian football. Translated by Lisa Shaw.

|| Illustration by Lola Landekic
A Watch in the Night

From the ongoing series Tabloid Fiction—in which an author chooses from the trashiest, most lurid, or just bizarre stories of the moment and writes a short story inspired by same.

||Lola Landekic
Non Stop Beautiful Ladies

From the ongoing series Tabloid Fiction—in which an author chooses from the trashiest, most lurid, or just bizarre stories of the moment and writes a short story inspired by same.

||Via AP/John DiGiacomo
Two-Man Luge: A Love Story

On the occasion of the 2014 Winter Olympics, we present this excerpt from Claire Battershill's forthcoming collection of short fiction, Circus. The story of one man's life in luge.

||Lola Landekic
Butterflies Are Free to Die

From the ongoing series Tabloid Fiction—in which an author chooses from the trashiest, most lurid, or just bizarre stories of the moment and writes a short story inspired by same.

Exfoliation

A woman shattered by the end of her marriage seeks temporary solace in a spa treatment—and finds the experience more therapeutic than she expected. Part of the series Household Gods, a collection of stories about our relationship to famous people and how celebrities infiltrate our private lives.

Bigger Than Money

Through a haze of anesthetic, a patient on the operating table recognizes her surgeon's voice. Part of the series Household Gods, a collection of stories about our relationship to famous people and how celebrities infiltrate our private lives.

The Stress of Lives

A famous scientist is reincarnated as a chimp, though neither he nor his grieving widow are equipped to recognize the truth.

||Lola Landekic
Avril Lavigne's Disco Divorce

This is our eighth installment of Tabloid Fiction, in which an author chooses from the trashiest, most lurid, or just bizarre stories of the moment and writes a short story inspired by same.