Curated by SOFIA BELIMOVA
Welcome to the June round of Friday Reads! Are you hoping to read more this summer? Do you have a favorite shady spot in a backyard or park, but no book to share it with? Read on for exciting recommendations from our contributors. Find stories that reach beyond the scope of normative human experience, essays about writing and writers, and hybrid memoir on music and survival.
By BOB JOHNSON
Joetta woke from a dreamless, midday nap to a knock on the door, and the first thought that came to her was, The grass isn’t mowed. Visitors to the Thatcher home were rare, but like the woman traveler who wears clean underwear in case of an accident, Joetta believed a house’s tidy exterior promised a respectable life within.
On the other hand, with bills to pay, with the Indiana heat stifling, with Mother sick in bed upstairs, the last thing Joetta needed was company.
She rubbed her eyes and limped to the front window. A young man in a corduroy jacket stood on the porch. Joetta didn’t know him, though she decided he wasn’t a Jehovah’s Witness. Those people carried tracts and bibles, not manila folders under their arms. Also, they had a smile at the ready, while this one—he knocked again, then mopped his face and checked his watch, all in the same harried motion—had difficult business before him.
She thought not to answer, but she figured someone compelled to be there would feel compelled to return, so she opened the door slightly and peered over the safety chain.
“Is that Mrs. Thatcher?” the young man said.
By BOB JOHNSON
The night Barack Obama was elected president, Roger Sinclair and his family gathered in his living room to watch the results come in. And there Roger—lifelong Democrat, city councilman, local party chair—drank a bottle of Merlot and elbowed his granddaughter Emily in the cheek, breaking her orbital socket.
Before the incident, the evening had been a happy one. Roger’s son Joel and daughter-in-law Colette were as rapt as he by the momentous events. All agreed that John McCain (a patriot, to be sure) was mired in the past, while the young candidate from Chicago—his beautiful family, his dazzling smile—represented an optimism the country hadn’t seen in a generation.
“It’s a return to Camelot,” Roger said, lifting his glass, though Joel’s and Colette’s puzzled faces told him they missed the reference.
Don’t miss an issue! Subscribe to The Common.