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The Esquire Four: New Voices for a New Era of Fiction

The Esquire Four: New Voices for a New Era of Fiction

M.C. Armstrong
3.8/5 ( ratings)
Read Download
It’s always more thrilling to discover a new voice than to trot out an old, established one.

With "The Esquire Four," a collection of never-before-published short stories by new writers, Esquire, in collaboration with Byliner, presents its first e-book of new voices. Original stories by young writers are nothing new for the magazine, which championed the early careers of J. D. Salinger and Philip Roth and Raymond Carver and Cormac McCarthy. But this is Esquire’s first e-book of fiction by young writers, and the stories within are as portable as they come. And also as classic as any Esquire fiction.

Matt Sumell’s narrator in “Rape in the Animal Kingdom” sounds like the kind of Natty Light–swilling, YouTube-addled bro you want to put a fist through. But the narrator’s small observations—about the way we live and die and mourn and buy cars and drink and have sex—are as trenchant as they are biting. And funny. Funny as hell.

In fewer than five thousand words, Jennifer duBois manages to piece together a story that drips with all the suspense and fear and love you’d expect in a novel. At its simplest, her “Retreat from Moscow” is about a honeymoon that ends abruptly. But it becomes a story about the choices we make and the way we come to terms with them.

In “Hesca,” M. C. Armstrong gives us a veteran back from Iraq, but it’s a war story unlike any other. It’s about organic gardening and Wiccans and Allen Ginsberg and dogs, and it has more humor than any story about PTSD ever should.

Jodi Angel’s “You Only Get Letters from Jail” will haunt you long after you’ve finished it. Angel’s voice is as singular and natural as they come, splintered and unvarnished, at times dripping with sweat and Schlitz. The young men and women in her story—all living lives in which cheap thrills are the only kind—teeter on a razor’s bloody edge. They drink, they wait for what’s next, they hope to make it out.

"The Esquire Four" concludes with the Ten Best 79-Word Stories in America—the finalists for the Esquire/Aspen Writers’ Foundation Short Short Fiction Contest. Each of these seventy-nine-word stories—in honor of Esquire’s seventy-nine years—is a small gem: sharp, mesmerizing, and often brilliant.

Each of these authors has thrown off the expectations of what “good” fiction is and charts his or her own way. And each of their stories is classic Esquire—riveting, powerful, unforgettable.
Language
English
Pages
88
Format
Kindle Edition
Publisher
Byliner Inc.
Release
November 28, 2012

The Esquire Four: New Voices for a New Era of Fiction

M.C. Armstrong
3.8/5 ( ratings)
Read Download
It’s always more thrilling to discover a new voice than to trot out an old, established one.

With "The Esquire Four," a collection of never-before-published short stories by new writers, Esquire, in collaboration with Byliner, presents its first e-book of new voices. Original stories by young writers are nothing new for the magazine, which championed the early careers of J. D. Salinger and Philip Roth and Raymond Carver and Cormac McCarthy. But this is Esquire’s first e-book of fiction by young writers, and the stories within are as portable as they come. And also as classic as any Esquire fiction.

Matt Sumell’s narrator in “Rape in the Animal Kingdom” sounds like the kind of Natty Light–swilling, YouTube-addled bro you want to put a fist through. But the narrator’s small observations—about the way we live and die and mourn and buy cars and drink and have sex—are as trenchant as they are biting. And funny. Funny as hell.

In fewer than five thousand words, Jennifer duBois manages to piece together a story that drips with all the suspense and fear and love you’d expect in a novel. At its simplest, her “Retreat from Moscow” is about a honeymoon that ends abruptly. But it becomes a story about the choices we make and the way we come to terms with them.

In “Hesca,” M. C. Armstrong gives us a veteran back from Iraq, but it’s a war story unlike any other. It’s about organic gardening and Wiccans and Allen Ginsberg and dogs, and it has more humor than any story about PTSD ever should.

Jodi Angel’s “You Only Get Letters from Jail” will haunt you long after you’ve finished it. Angel’s voice is as singular and natural as they come, splintered and unvarnished, at times dripping with sweat and Schlitz. The young men and women in her story—all living lives in which cheap thrills are the only kind—teeter on a razor’s bloody edge. They drink, they wait for what’s next, they hope to make it out.

"The Esquire Four" concludes with the Ten Best 79-Word Stories in America—the finalists for the Esquire/Aspen Writers’ Foundation Short Short Fiction Contest. Each of these seventy-nine-word stories—in honor of Esquire’s seventy-nine years—is a small gem: sharp, mesmerizing, and often brilliant.

Each of these authors has thrown off the expectations of what “good” fiction is and charts his or her own way. And each of their stories is classic Esquire—riveting, powerful, unforgettable.
Language
English
Pages
88
Format
Kindle Edition
Publisher
Byliner Inc.
Release
November 28, 2012

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