I began reading Thomas Mann’s Doctor Faustus: The Life of the German Composer Adrian Leverkühn, as Told by a Friend (1947), in mid-2016, casually. I’d bought the book by mistake several years prior, thinking it was Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s version—that is, the seminal German Faust. I am not the first to have confused the two authors.

It helps to know, especially
when you’re hiding.

Suada stood in her curlers at the kitchen table and cut with scissors into a cardboard box. Her brother, who had remained with his family in Norway even after the war had ended, had sent her a package for her birthday. She ripped the last bit of the tape with her fingers and opened the flaps. 

She grins to herself, then, since they friended
each other at some point during that night,
she opens messenger and starts to write
a message: “Hi. It’s been a while
but I’d still like to be your friend.”

There are few if any American writers who can vocalize the crushing despair of late capitalist malaise in a mere five sentences.

P and Aliza fought often, and in these battles P always managed to leave reminders of himself. Like the time I found her with three of his fingers imprinted on her right cheek.