Episode One It opens on a summer day outside a coal-burning power plant on the coast of Lake Erie. 2016. Nick, about forty, is dressed in a blue Oxford shirt and khaki slacks—the uniform of the mild-mannered, prestige TV protagonist. His wife, Sabrina, thirty-five, is dressed in a blue t-shirt that reads “Save Yourself” across …
I created the Wikipedia entry for Daniel M. Sherenton as a joke. It would be months before I realized the full, unhappy consequences of this decision. I was scheduled to visit my family in the northern suburb of Detroit where I’m from, and I had planned to boast, at some point during the trip, that …
I tell Algo nice try, but Anthony Keidis is all wrong. Yeah, RHCP is the right decade, but Kiedis’s voice is too blue spotlight, too broad strokes, straight petting, warm corner of the swimming pool. His voice is a tongue pressing too hard in a spot where I need soft, erratic pressure. To be fair, …
In Alma and Manda’s trim white farmhouse, it was a wonder the border of Swedish Christmas plates didn’t fly off the walls as Manda stormed through the preparation of their afternoon coffee. Alma sat at the kitchen table, oblivious to her sister clattering the flowered cups and saucers. Her mind was so occupied, it didn’t …
‘End up with’ sounds so ridiculous when I’m talking to myself. But in some ways the person you decide to settle down with—that sounds ridiculous too. Let’s try again. But in some ways, getting to the person you decide to navigate the world next to is like a roll of the dice with a trick …
I had always hated Mila’s boyfriend, but because she loved him and because she was dying, I tried to be polite. When he called, it was one in the morning Pacific Time and I’d already been asleep for hours. He said, “Mila’s asking, do you have any bud?” as if we were twenty and I …
In my most vivid memory of my daughter, we are on the beach in Kauai and she is walking toward me, hair wet and tangled, legs pink with sunburn. Her purple bathing suit is too small for her. She extends her cupped hands toward me. “Daddy, look,” she says, opening her fingers. There in her …
Entering the train that night was like stepping into a diorama, the inside of the car covered floor to ceiling with contact paper of leaves, vines, and flowers. The car had been painted a shiny emerald on the outside too, part of an environmental campaign. This was in early March, when it was still difficult …
The girls, strangers, look at each other between the crack separating the airline seats. They are eight and nine-years-old, and the only children on the plane. Their fathers, who don’t know each other, have brought them on a business trip, an unusual event. This is the first flight both children have ever taken. Sally’s father …
Together you and Juliette spray footprints. Get to the spot, drop boards on sand. Sky dawn pink, she waxes, you yank up your wetsuit, secure hair, which she never does, leaves it down, of course. Plunge into surf, the first shock of cold creeping to skin. Too stunning all around now for that ugly feeling …