Fiction
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Definitely Better Now: An interview with Ava Robinson (MFA ’22) on her debut novel
Interview by LIT Books Editor Jonathan Kesh
Ava Robinson’s Definitely Better Now is a romantic comedy, or at least it is in part. How else you might classify it is trickier, which is part of its appeal.
The book begins with Emma, the narrator, uneasily but earnestly celebrating a full year of sobriety after a difficult break from alcoholism, which runs in her family and was never quite shaken by her father. Per the rules of her New York Alcoholics Anonymous chapter, she’s held off dating to focus on keeping her own head above water,
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Jakob as Worm
"Still City Full Moon" painting by Nuala McEvoy
by David Leo Rice
This story marks the beginning of The New House 2: The Chapel of Humiliation, sequel to the 2022 novel The New House, about a family of outsider artists roaming the American interior in search of The New Jerusalem, which they believe will only be revealed in dreams. At the end of that novel, an adolescent boy, Jakob, watched his father sacrifice his mother in his stead, and vanish into the woods, leaving him alone with her headless body.
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Boxed
image curtesy of the Public Domain Review
by Margaret Ries
Make the pieces small. Easier to explain a hand or a foot. A whole body’s something else.
But what to do about the blood? What if the ground sheet of plastic is not enough? I had imagined the job would be as easy as sawing logs for a fire. But when I start in, the blood begins oozing thick and gloppy onto the basement floor. It’s hard to keep a grip. She’s already gone stiff and she shoots down the plastic like she’s on one of those waterslides I used to make for Danny out in the backyard.
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The Guy Who Has 15 Things
image curtesy of The Public Domain Review
by MJ McGinn
1) Don’t look now, but they’re coming. They want your shit. They want it. They want it and nobody cares how you never had a birthday party. They’re hungry and wanting and wanting and hungry and wanting, and most of all, they’re coming.
2) I live on the backs of trains where it’s warm enough. If you can’t count the spokes, it’s moving too fast to get on or off.
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Self-Guided Study
image curtesy of The Public Domain Review
by Meredith Gordon
This quiz is for self-enrichment only. Its content may be triggering.
Any reaction should prompt further self-study. There is one correct
answer for each question, but there are no wrong answers.A classroom, a back row, a dilemma: A 500-page statistics book sits with
its spine uncracked on your desk. Under your desk, thick, glossy issues of
Cosmopolitan, Glamour, and Self, are splayed open
in your lap. -
The Allegorical Doctor
image curtesy of the Public Domain Review
by Genevieve Abravanel
The allegorical doctor has a bottle. A cloudy glass vessel with dark syrup inside. “This is the cure for what ails you. Your liver, for instance.”
“There’s nothing wrong with my liver.” Julia clutches her purse. Gucci, green snake skin, off-season, on sale.
“Just an example.”
“How much does it cost?” Julia will not tell Ted. She’ll use her private money.
“Everything and nothing.”
Julia hesitates. Considers Dr. Friedrich with his half-moon glasses and tweed jacket.
