The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2019 Read online

  Contents

  * * *

  Title Page

  Contents

  Copyright

  Editors’ Note

  Introduction

  PATRICIA SAMMON: Hill Country

  CHARLES JOHNSON: Follow the Drinking Gourd

  JANE WONG: Curse for the American Dream

  MATTHEW HONGOLTZ-HETLING: Barbearians at the Gate

  ANDREA LONG CHU: I Worked with Avital Ronell. I Believe Her Accuser.

  HOLTON ARMS CLASS OF 1984: To the United States Congress

  KATE GASKIN: Diagnosis in Reverse

  VIET THANH NGUYEN: On True War Stories

  GARTH GREENWELL: The Frog King

  EMILY RINKEMA: Child A

  RENéE BRANUM: As the Sparks Fly Upward

  LATIFA AYAD: Arabic Lesson

  MADDY RASKULINECZ: Barbara From Florida

  NATHANIEL RUSSELL: It’s Natural (selected comics)

  UCHE OKONKWO: Our Belgian Wife

  ROBIN COSTE LEWIS: Self-Care

  DEVIN GORDON: THE BROTHERS AGUAYO

  SYLVIA CHAN: Naked and Vulnerable, the Rest Is Circumstance

  MIKKO HARVEY: Spring

  ANGELA GARBES: The BabyLand Diaries

  BRITTENEY BLACK ROSE KAPRI: Two Poems

  KEITH DONNELL JR: The Gettysburg Address (Sound Translations 1 and 2)

  DEBORAH TAFFA: Almost Human

  MARGARET ROSS: Macho

  DAVID DRURY: The Lake and the Onion

  Contributors’ Notes

  The Best American Nonrequired Reading Committee

  Notable Nonrequired Reading of 2018

  About 826 National

  About ScholarMatch

  Read More from the Best American Series

  About the Editor

  Connect with HMH

  Copyright © 2019 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company

  Introduction copyright © 2019 by Edan Lepucki

  Editors’ Note copyright © 2019 by Beatrice Kilat

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  The Best American Series® is a registered trademark of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. The Best American Nonrequired Reading™ is a trademark of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.

  No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system without the prior written permission of the copyright owner unless such copying is expressly permitted by federal copyright law. With the exception of nonprofit transcription in Braille, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt is not authorized to grant permission for further uses of copyrighted selections reprinted in this book without the permission of their owners. Permission must be obtained from the individual copyright owners as identified herein. Address requests for permission to make copies of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt material to [email protected] or to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 215 Park Avenue South, New York, New York 10003

  hmhbooks.com

  ISSN I539-376X (PRINT) | ISSN 2573-3923 (E-BOOK) | ISBN 978-0-358-09316-9 (PRINT) | ISBN 978-0-358-09303-9 (E-BOOK)

  Cover illustration and design © Molly Egan

  Lepucki photograph © Adam Karsten

  v1.0919

  “Arabic Lesson” by Latifa Ayad. First published by the Indiana Review. Copyright © 2018 by Latifa Ayad. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “As the Sparks Fly Upward” by Renée Branum. First published by Alaska Quarterly Review. Copyright © 2018 by Renée Branum. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “Naked and Vulnerable, the Rest Is Circumstance” by Sylvia Chan. First published by Prairie Schooner. Copyright © 2018 by Sylvia Chan. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “I Worked with Avital Ronell. I Believe Her Accuser.” by Andrea Long Chu. First published by the Chronicle of Higher Education. Copyright © 2018 by Andrea Long Chu. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “The Gettysburg Address (Sound Translations 1 and 2)” by Keith Donnell Jr. First published online by Puerto del Sol at www.puertodelsol.org. Copyright © 2018 by Keith Donnell Jr. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “The Lake and the Onion” by David Drury. First published by Zyzzyva. Copyright © 2018 by David Drury. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “The BabyLand Diaries” by Angela Garbes. First published by Topic. Copyright © 2018 by Angela Garbes. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “Diagnosis in Reverse” by Kate Gaskin. First published by 32 Poems. Copyright © 2018 by Kate Gaskin. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “The Brothers Aguayo” by Devin Gordon. First published online by Victory Journal at VictoryJournal.com. Copyright © 2018 by Devin Gordon. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “The Frog King” from Cleanness: Stories by Garth Greenwell. Forthcoming from Farrar, Straus and Giroux in January 2020. Reprinted by permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Originally published by The New Yorker on November 19, 2018.

  “Spring” by Mikko Harvey. First published in Indiana Review. Copyright © 2018 by Mikko Harvey. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “To the United States Congress” by the Holton Arms Class of 1984. First published online at StandWithBlaseyFord.com. Copyright © 2018 by Holton Arms Class of 1984. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “Barbearians at the Gate” by Matthew Hongoltz-Hetling. First published online by The Atavist at www.atavist.com. Copyright © 2018 by Matthew Hongoltz-Hetling. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “Follow the Drinking Gourd” from Night Hawks: Stories by Charles Johnson. From Scribner in May 2018. Reprinted by permission of Simon & Schuster, Inc. First published by The Kenyon Review in July/August 2018.

  “black queer hoe” and “open letter to the mothers who shield their daughters from looking at me” by Britteney Black Rose Kapri. First published by Haymarket Books. Copyright © 2018 by Britteney Black Rose Kapri. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “Self-Care” by Robin Coste Lewis. First published by The Paris Review. Copyright © 2018 by Robin Coste Lewis. Reprinted by permission of the Wylie Agency.

  “On True War Stories” by Viet Thanh Nguyen and Matt Huynh. First published by The Massachusetts Review. Copyright © 2018 by Matt Huynh. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “Our Belgian Wife” by Uche Okonkwo. First published by One Story. Copyright © 2018 by Uche Okonkwo. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “Barbara from Florida” by Maddy Raskulinecz. First published by Zyzzyva. Copyright © 2018 Maddy Raskulinecz. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “Child A” by Emily Rinkema. First published by Sixfold Fiction. Copyright © 2018 by Emily Rinkema. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “Macho” by Margaret Ross. First published by The Paris Review. Copyright © 2018 by Margaret Ross. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “it’s natural” by Nathaniel Russell. First published by The Smudge. Copyright © 2018 by Nathaniel Russell. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “Hill Country” by Patricia Sammon. First published by december. Copyright © 2018 by Patricia Sammon. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “Almost Human” by Deborah Taffa. First published by A Public Space. Copyright © 2018 by Deborah Taffa. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “Curse for the American Dream” by Jane Wong. First published by The Asian American Literary Review. Copyright © 2018 by Jane Wong. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  Editors’ Note

  A few years ago, I was visiting
friends on the East Coast when I found myself with a full day alone. I made up a plan for the day that included walking and hoping to happen upon something great, which is what can happen when you take the time to do things with intention. I visited gardens, boarded trains, and eventually ended up at a modern art museum.

  I went inside and proceeded to go straight to the top floor—I always like to start at the top and work my way down. In fact, this is how I like to work through everything: Begin one hundred feet in the air and then move closer and closer until you’ve seen everything up close and far away.

  On the top floor of this particular museum, there was a new exhibit featuring the rarely seen work of an integral modern artist of the twentieth century. Please excuse me if it seems I’m being vague, but the point isn’t the artist, exactly, it’s . . . well, the work is the point.

  And, oh, the work.

  At times large and graphically bold, other times small and black and white, the exhibition was a lesson in contrasts and cohesion. But I didn’t immediately understand that. When I first laid eyes on these paintings and sculptures, I didn’t know how to interpret them. I couldn’t figure out what I was seeing.

  So, I looked and I looked and I kept looking.

  I noticed that the painted lines didn’t just form trapezoids and squares, they were parts of something bigger, possibly the edge of something else. The lines led to a sort of horizon, acting as indicators that there was more out there, more to see, more to come.

  In my mind, it seemed like somewhere past those painted horizons there could be a different version of me, standing in another museum, contemplating sightlines and endings and what lies on the other side of where you are.

  By witnessing the lines and arrows pointing to the unknown, I was participating in the sort of endless, collaborative timeline that art can create. I was witnessing and becoming a part of a new history.

  For the past year, a group of teenagers in the San Francisco Bay Area have been congregating in a basement classroom under Mc-Sweene/s Publishing to discuss storytelling and stories of all stripes, as well as what’s happening around the world and at home. What you’re holding is the product of those meetings.

  A lot has happened this year, and you can see change happening in these pages, in unexpected, at times painful and startlingly beautiful ways.

  I think the committee was working toward a horizon, toward some meeting point where they could pass or pick up a baton that could carry them to the other side of somewhere else.

  It’s a big ask—asking people just barely out of their adolescence to consider more and more of themselves and of others, but, believe me, these teens were more than up to the task. I think most people are. If you’re reading this book, I bet you are, too.

  Every week, the BANR committee showed up ready to work and ready to create something special for you, a monument to the year in America and where we were.

  In our last meeting, Dasha Bulatova, our wonderful helper from San Francisco State University, transcribed our last conversation as a group. Our overlapping ideas crisscrossed into this paragraph:

  It’s less of a drought. The bees got better. We found ten bumblebees in our house by the window just in the last week. It seems like the earth is repairing itself. In California they have new commissions for solar energy requirements for new buildings. Shrooms are now legal in Denver. “I grew as a person. That’s all I’ll say.”

  Time passes and things change for the better, sometimes for the best. Even a little bit of time can reveal great changes.

  Flip to the end of the book to read more about the committee and the work that 826 National enables us to do. It’s great work, and I’m so grateful we were able to look and look and look at our world and make something out of it. I’m so grateful you’re curious about what we found.

  Anyway, I guess that’s all I’ll say, too.

  Thanks for reading along with us. We hope you’ll enjoy the collection.

  BEATRICE KILAT and the BANR Committee

  June 2019

  Introduction

  When I was asked to guest edit this year’s Best American Nonrequired Reading, I didn’t hesitate to accept. The job was a dream. Each week, I would get to submit a couple pieces of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, or a comic for a committee of high school students to read for possible inclusion in the anthology. Twice, I would travel to San Francisco to meet with these teenagers (and their fearless leader Beatrice Kilat) to join in their discussions. Then I would be expected to write this introduction.

  Yes, please, I said.

  The thing is, I love to read. Also, I love teenagers. Teenagers! Not only the tender clichés of them—how they travel in packs, dressed alike, bags of Cheetos or those tall cans of Arizona Iced Tea in their fists—but what they symbolize: beautiful and/or awkward creatures at the precipice of adulthood. They’re focused on the wide world beyond, but they’re also, for the first time, assessing their own families and histories. I imagine a teen alone, lying across her bedroom floor, reading Anne Sexton or writing her own bad poetry, listening to Weezer or Bikini Kill, her faux fur coat and vintage Partridge Family lunch box flung across the bed behind her.

  Oh wait. That was me as a teenager. Way back in, like, 1997. Was it that long ago?

  Now I’m thirty-eight and I have two children and—lord help me—a third on the way. I never get to hang out with high school students, and, most likely, my next opportunity will be when I myself am a mother of some. And that will be a different role altogether.

  Editing this book, I figured, would give me the chance to meet some young people in 2019, and find out what matters to them. Now.

  When I first started, I sought out work that I thought a group of teens would connect with—a fool’s errand, obviously; it felt like I was skulking through a Forever 21, dropping some cringe-worthy slang as the beautiful babies glided past (in my mind they’re vaping . . .). Thankfully, I abandoned this plan quickly, and began to send pieces I simply loved, or found intriguing, or because I thought they would be fun to discuss with a group of smart readers. I reminded myself of Nonrequired Reading’s unique set-up: although the anthology is curated by readers between the ages of fifteen and eighteen, the series is meant for every reader, regardless of age.

  Since I would only be present for two meetings, I began a weekly ritual of reading the Google Doc session notes (which were impeccably taken by poet, and series intern, Dasha Bulatova). The no-nonsense script of what went down cracked me up every time. Allow me to fictionalize a characteristic interaction:

  COCO: This piece was just . . . whatever. I didn’t care.

  ALTHEA: I loved it! I totally loved it.

  What a revelation, to see how one person could feel so cold about an essay, while another person gnashed their teeth at the thought of not having said essay included in the collection! It reminded me of what the late poet Marvin Bell instructed in his “32 Statements About Writing Poetry”: “Try to write poems at least one person in the room will hate.” As an author, reading the session notes was a sobering but welcome reminder that it’s not possible, or even preferable, for everyone to love and connect with your writing all the time. The spectrum of opinions is, actually, quite beautiful: as readers, we bring our own needs, biases, experiences, and pleasure points to a text. It’s the sheer diversity of readers that allows for all kinds of writing to exist, persist, and develop, decade by decade. It’s what makes a connection to a text, that heart-clutching love for a piece, seem so personal, why it feels as if this was written for me.

  By the time I was due to visit the group in person, I was excited and a bit nervous. These were spirited meetings, as far as I could tell from the transcripts. I was right. Around that conference table, the students ate tangerines, peeling their skins into ribbons. They popped doughnuts into their mouths. Checked their phones. Bea starts every meeting by asking what’s happened in the news since last week, from the local to the international, from Donald Trump to Khloe Kardashian, a
nd so there was a lot of joking around and saddened murmurs and disgusted eye rolls.

  I tried to play it cool, but, honestly, I was enthralled. Teenagers!

  When we got to talking about the reading, the opinions began to fly. As in any class, some students hung back, waiting to be called on, while the more outgoing personalities dived right in. Regardless, everyone got a chance to speak. I was struck by how respectful everyone was, even when they disagreed. At that first visit, a young woman revealed that the story we were discussing was the only submitted piece that she’d truly loved—but oh, how she loved it.

  On my second visit, a student suggested a story felt more believable to her than it did to me because she herself was from a mixed-race family like the one in the piece; hearing her point of view didn’t change my opinion of the story, but it did give me a new perspective on my own reading experience. I easily could have discussed the topic for another hour.

  Sitting with the committee reminded me of being in a good college seminar, or in a graduate writing workshop, where talking is a productive exercise, a way to see a text—and, thus, the world—anew, from myriad angles. To stop and admire a turn of phrase or a final paragraph. To question a shift in tense. To have someone toss a set of photocopied pages on the table and say, “No. Just, no.”

  One question persisted at both meetings: “Does this need to be in the book?” The committee’s mission, as they explained it to me, was to showcase new ideas, styles, and writers to a wider audience. They wanted to choose work that hadn’t already been read and shared a thousand times on the internet. It also wasn’t enough to like a piece; it had to make sense among the other selections. Sure, this is “nonrequired” reading, but the potential breadth of the book’s audience meant the students shouldered a certain level of responsibility. What would it mean to say yes to this poem or that story? What were they trying to express through this particular curation of disparate voices?

  In the end, nothing within these pages was uniformly beloved by the entire committee. Also, only two of the pieces I myself submitted for consideration made the cut. Knowing this, I was, of course, eager to get my claws on the twenty-odd pieces that finally got the nod from this group of passionate, discerning readers.