Fiction | Page 36 | The Common

Am I Speaking to Hyman Roth?

November 1, 2014 Fiction, Issue 08, Issue 08 Fiction

Early that morning his telephone had begun ringing nonstop, and he found himself thanking directors, casting directors, producers, actors, and all the members of the Actors Studio. He’d seen many of his actors receive Oscar nominations, but when he heard his name among the 1974 nominees for The Godfather: Part II, Lee Strasberg was astounded. The callers told him he’d been a master actor on the set; he had blown away his own pupils (“They were wonderful, but nothing compared to you”); he’d been able to humanize and at the same time portray the horror that was Hyman Roth; he must have awed even Francis Ford Coppola.

Caleta Beach

November 1, 2014 Fiction, Issue 08, Issue 08 Fiction

By NANI POWER

Papi say we goin on a real vacation and Milky say Vegas and me, Tippy, I say Disney and then Carlo say Nueva York but no, say Papi, we gots to go to Acapulco. I say you mean Mexico and he say sí, cabrón, like I’m a dumbass. Carlo crackin up.

The Dying of the Deads

November 1, 2014 Fiction, Issue 08, Issue 08 Fiction

By JEFF JACKSON

Part One.

A Map of Everything Swallowed

They start drinking three hours before the funeral. Tequila, mostly. A bottle and a half later, their heads are buzzing on some private wavelength. Hazy shapes slither in front of their eyes. Words sound furry in their ears.

Stewardship

November 1, 2014 Fiction, Issue 08, Issue 08 Fiction, Issues

By EDMUND SANDOVAL

It’s easy to forget you once had control. That you stopped making decisions for yourself. Part of that’s getting older, and I’ve gotten older—not much, but some. It’s what comes with settling down and making some sort of life and having children. And that’s something. We all know that. But then there’s the bad part of it, when you speak up just to realize that you haven’t got any say, that your words stay lodged in your mind, stuck in your throat. That they are altogether gone, like birds migrated for the winter and never come back. Worse than that, you wake up and find out that somebody else was forming your words for you all along. That was me for the longest of times. My best years that I lost when I was silent and tepid and living in the woods. I want to tell of how I got out of that forest. I want to tell about how I came to the clearing whole and intact and feeling good.

Clouds

November 1, 2014 Fiction, Issue 08, Issue 08 Fiction, Translation

By ANTONIO TABUCCHI

Translated by MARTHA COOLEY and ANTONIO ROMANI

— You stay here in the shade all day, said the young girl, don’t you like going in the water?

The man gave a vague nod that could have meant yes or no, but said nothing.

—Can I use tu with you?, asked the girl.

—If I’m not mistaken, you just did, the man said and smiled.

Reichelt’s Parachute

November 1, 2014 Fiction, Issue 08, Issue 08 Fiction, Issues

By IAN BASSINGTHWAIGHTE

His name was Gustave Eiffel, and he built his giant French tower because it was impossible—that is what everyone said—to build something so tall. They said the tower would topple under its own weight. Or the wind would blow, the metal would bend, and the rivets would snap. The tower would plunge into the city.

A Motor-Flight Through France

June 13, 2014 Fiction

By EDITH WHARTON

A trailblazer among American women at the turn of the century, Edith Wharton set out in the newly invented “motor-car” to explore the cities and countryside of France. As the Whartons embark on three separate journeys through the country in 1906 and 1907, accompanied first by Edith’s brother, Harry Jones, and then by Henry James, Edith is enamored by the freedom that this new form of transport has given her. With a keen eye for architecture and art, and the engrossing style that would later earn her a Pulitzer Prize in fiction, Wharton writes about places that she previously “yearned for from the windows of the train.”

Nella Citta Nuda: Two Subway Stories

May 14, 2014 Fiction

By ANTONIO MONDA

Today, The Common is featuring two translated short stories from the book Nella Citta Nuda by Antonio Monda. The Common in the (Eternal) City on May 21 features Monda in conversation with Larissa MacFarquhar.

Excerpts from Bud and Sanky

April 9, 2014 Fiction, Issue 07, Issue 07 Fiction

Today, we are publishing excerpts from contributors Nalini Jones and Jeff Parker in anticipation of the Issue 07 Launch Party this Sunday. Join us for a Spring fete of live literature and music featuring readings by Jones and Parker!

Con

April 4, 2014 Fiction, Issue 07, Issue 07 Fiction

By STEPHEN O’CONNOR

We decided to start with a con. She was small, with blonde hair and an unidentifiable accent that gave her voice the warped vowels and ee-haw rhythms of a handsaw. She approached him on the footbridge, made a startled noise, and looked down. His eyes followed hers, and there—exactly midway between them—was a golden ring. She picked it up first, having been, after all, the one who had put it there the instant before he caught sight of her.