Pu-239 (Electric Literature's Recommended Reading)

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In her introduction to this issue, guest editor Fiona Maazel says "Pu-239" isn't just satire. 'No, this fiction has the higher aim of ennobling stupidity—of recognizing its power and aptitude for destruction. In this universe, which is, of course, our universe, thousands of people are dying every day because someone pushed the wrong button. Or the button was in Urdu. Or someone didn’t know her periodic table and couldn’t be bothered to read the book. Just a few weeks ago, I saw Obama on 60 Minutes say that when he took office, the first thing Bob Gates told him was to remember that at this moment, somewhere, somehow, someone in the federal government was screwing up. Which reminder asserted two things: One, that the president will always have someone else to blame, in essence: that deniability is king, and two, that incompetence is the currency most responsible for the buying and selling of our future. Want to know more? Read “Pu-239.”'

About Recommended Reading:
Great authors inspire us. But what about the stories that inspire them? Recommended Reading, the latest project from Electric Literature, publishes one story every week, each chosen by a great author or editor. In this age of distraction, we uncover writing that's worth slowing down and spending some time with. And in doing so, we help give great writers, literary magazines, and independent presses the recognition they deserve.

About the author:
Ken Kalfus is the author of two novels, The Commissariat of Enlightenment and A Disorder Peculiar to the Country, plus two collections of stories, Thirst and Pu-239 and Other Russian Fantasies, which was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award. Kalfus, who lived in Moscow from 1994 to 1998, first published "Pu-239" in Harper's Magazine in 1996. An adaptation of the story, written and directed by Scott Z. Burns, was made into an HBO movie.
Kalfus's new novel, Equilateral, will be published in April.

About the Guest Editor:
Fiona Maazel is the author of the novels Last Last Chance and Woke Up Lonely. She is winner of the Bard Prize for Fiction and a National Book Foundation “5 Under 35” honoree. Her work has appeared in Conjunctions, Book Forum, the New York Times, The Yale Review, This American Life, and elsewhere. She lives in Brooklyn, NY.