This Is Not Your City (25 page)

“Stop, Wil. Please, stop.”

“You don't want to, anymore?”

“It's not fun anymore. It's not funny.”

“Okay, whatever you want. No more kids.”

That still seemed the wrong thing to say, and Wil eased out of the chair to bring them a feast of leftover food, gummy worms, pretzels, two green apples and a bag of chalky dinner mints. Night came on, but the electricity hummed back to life, and in ones and twos and twelves the dark water was lit with rectangles of yellow light, a grid of windows and doors in the sea, the outlines of 316 people living safely in the side of a leviathan. “We'll all be home in a couple of days,” Wil said. “All of us.”

“All of us,” Lucinda said. “Home.”

“Home.”

“Yes. We'll be home.”

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

These stories, sometimes in slightly different form, first appeared in the following publications:

 

The Southern Review:
“Zolaria”

Blackbird:
“It Looks Like This”

Passages North:
“Zero Conditional”

Tin House:
“Going to Estonia”

Epoch:
“World Champion Cow of the Insane”

Prairie Schooner
and
The Pushcart Prize XXXV: Best of the Small Presses:
“Steal Small”

The Cincinnati Review:
“Embodied”

The Paris Review:
“At the Zoo”

West Branch:
“The Lion Gate”

Third Coast
and
The PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories 2009:
“This Is Not Your City”

The Gettysburg Review:
“In the Gulf of Aden, Past the Cape of Guardafui”

 

More people than I could possibly list have contributed to this book, in ways large and small. I've stolen punch lines, couches, fish tanks, translations, and more. Thanks to all those who have fed me with your friendship, your conversation, your wisdom, your humor. I hope you know who you are.

 

I'm especially thankful to everyone who read these stories and not only helped make them better, but made me a better writer:

To my teachers, including Ron Carlson, Melissa Pritchard, T.M. McNally, Erin McGraw, Kim McMullen, and Judith DeWoskin.

To the whole Arizona State University MFA crowd, but especially Beth Staples, Katie Cortese, Liz Weld, Marian Crotty, Elizabyth Hiscox, Douglas Jones, Matthew Frank.

To other writerly friends: Ander Monson, Austin Bunn, Sarah Stella.

 

To all the editors who published (and improved) my work in their literary magazines and anthologies, particularly Brock Clarke.

 

Effusive thanks to Sarah Gorham and everybody at Sarabande, who not only do amazing work, but came riding up as knights in shining armor for this particular book. Thank you to Judy Heiblum, trusted advisor and advocate, and to Pamela Holway, for patience and good counsel.

 

For their financial support, a deep thank you to Grand Valley State University, Arizona State University, The Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing at Arizona State University, Theresa A. Wilhoit, the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, the Sewanee Writers' Conference, and
The Paris Review.

 

Lastly, I'm grateful to my parents and my sister Mary, who have been there from the beginning with love, support, and good books to read. And to Todd Kaneko: great writer, great editor, and Master of the Atomic Heart Punch.

CAITLIN HORROCKS lives in Michigan, by way of Ohio, Arizona, England, Finland, and the Czech Republic. Her stories have appeared in
The PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories 2009, The Best American Short Stories 2011, The Pushcart Prize XXXV, The Paris Review, Tin House,
and
The Southern Review.
Recently, she won the $10,000 Plimpton Prize from
The Paris Review.
She teaches at Grand Valley State University.

© 2011 by Caitlin Horrocks

 

 

All rights reserved.

 

No part of this book may be reproduced without written permission of the publisher. Please direct inquiries to:

eISBN : 978-1-936-74725-2

I. Title.
PS3608.O7687T48 2011
813'.6—dc22

2010050304

 

 

Sarabande Books is a nonprofit literary organization.

This project is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts.

The Kentucky Arts Council, the state arts agency, supports Sarabande Books with state tax dollars and federal funding from the National Endowment for the Arts.