Lit Mag Long Reads

If you’re a fan of novellas, Volume 42 Number 3 of New England Review and the Summer & Fall 2021 issue of Alaska Quarterly Review have got you covered.

In Alaska Quarterly Review, Kristopher Jansma’s “Like a Bomb Went Off” opens the issue. It begins:

The Neighbor’s House Explodes
The neighbor’s house explodes at 5:05 p.m. Harriet is behind the family station wagon, vacuuming summer’s sand out of the trunk. There is an incredible noise, like something collapsing to the ground. She looks up to see a white cloud rising behind the fence. Warm air rushes by like bathwater. There is no fireball. “It was like a bomb went off,” she’ll soon say, for the first time, even though it is not like that at all.

New England Review has published “Past Perfect” by Alice Greenway. The novella starts with:

“Can you explain when we use was and when use had been?” Sayed Zubair asked. He sat cross-legged on a blanket distributed by Samaritan’s Purse. It was spread on the floor as a rug. His back was impressively straight. He was a neat trim man with a tidy moustache, his hair beginning to thin on top, and he held a notebook in his lap. Behind him, a small plastic fan wedged into a square window blew in welcome air. He was proud of the fan, as he had pirated the electricity, hooking wires into the overhead floodlights that lit the camp at night.