Children playing before a statue of Hercules

Oh, Joseph, I'm so tired / Richard Yates --

Gryphon / Charles Baxter --

Interpreter of maladies / Jhumpa Lahiri --

The garden party / Katherine Mansfield --

Half a grapefruit / Alice Munro --

Applause, applause / Jean Thompson --

I know what I'm doing about all the attention I've been getting / Frank Gannon --

Where the door is always open and the welcome mat is out / Patricia Highsmith --

The best of Betty / Jincy Willett --

Song of the spirit, 1941 / Dorothy Parker --

The girl with the blackened eye / Joyce Carol Oates --

People like that are the only people here : canonical babbling in Peed Onk / Lorrie Moore --

Revelation / Flannery O'Connor --

In the cemetery where Al Jolson is buried / Amy Hempel --

Cosmopolitan / Akhil Sharma --

Irish girl / Tim Johnston --

Bullet in the brain / Tobias Wolff --

Epilogue: about 826NYC / Sarah Vowell.