Taboos & Transgressions

Description

Taboos and Transgressions: Stories of Wrongdoings, is an anthology that includes fiction and nonfiction. It was edited by Luanne Smith, Kerry Neville, and Devi S. Laskar, and focuses on breaking the rules with stories by Pam Houston, Bonnie Jo Campbell, Joyce Carol Oates, and Kim Addonizio alongside exceptional work by both noted and emerging writers. The anthology offers a scope of voices, styles, stories, and wrongdoings. From infidelity to family prejudices, from breaking the law to broken promises, from losing everything to finding empowerment, characters in these pieces offer a look at stepping over the line in all too human ways.
Edited by Luanne Smith, Kerry Neville, and Devi S. Laskar, the anthology represents the best of both solicited and unsolicited work. Unsolicited material has been read by judge Maurice Carlos Ruffin and prizes awarded to one winning story and two runners up.

Sujets

• Anthologies
• Fiction

Informations

• Publié par: Madville Publishing
• Date de parution: 04 mars 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781948692656
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Stories of Wrongdoings
edited by Luanne Smith, Kerry Neville, and Devi S. Laskar winners judged by Maurice Carlos Ruffin
Copyright © 2021 by Luanne Smith
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
FIRST EDITION
Requests for permission to reprint material from this collection should be directed to:
Permissions
Madville Publishing
P.O. Box 358
Lake Dallas, TX 75065
Cover Design: Jacqueline Davis
Cover Art: “Broken Carousel Horse with caution tape” by Julia Dorian.
Licensed through Shutterstock.
ISBN: 978-1-948692-64-9 paperback, 978-1-948692-65-6 ebook
Library of Congress Control Number: 2020941259
Table of Contents
Preface
Kim Addonizio
True Crime
Chavisa Woods
Exit Stage
Michael Gaspeny
The God Box
Joyce Carol Oates
Gargoyle
Pamela Painter
Stroller
Sarah Stone
Rising with the Seas
Soniah Kamal
The Tao of Good Families
Jen Knox
Lost Her Way
Paco Aramburu
The Kiss
Dalton Monk
What Was Ours
Lee Zacharias
Being the Record of Hannah King, born April 14, 1681, Salem Village
Francine Rodriguez
I Still Like Pink
Bonnie Jo Campbell
The Alcoholic Alphabet
Hadley Moore
When My Father Was in Prison
Lisa Lynn Biggar
I Know You Are, What Am I?
C.J. Spataro
Incarnations
Walter Evans
What Seems Fun or Nice
Sabina Khan-Ibarra
Honeyed Scents of Motherhood and Chai
Pam Houston
Jamboree
Kyle Ingrid Johnson
She Sheds Her Skin
Melanie Rae Thon
Lover
J.C. Sasser
Goatmartie
Molly Giles
Not A Cupid
Yohanca Delgado
The Niece
Acknowledgments
Contributor Bios
Editor Bios
Preface
Joyce Carol Oates teaches a MasterClass about the art of the short story. In the fourth brief twelve-minute lesson entitled “Ideas: Exploring Taboo and Darkness,” Oates says “Each subject that is taboo and hasn’t been discussed or has been considered vulgar or awful or unnatural, all those subjects relate to many people who share them but they have no outlet. So immediately you will have a readership….”
This anthology grew out of the desire to uncover or “face the darkness,” as Oates suggests. Co-Editors, Kerry Neville, Devi Laskar and I, all felt intrigued by this idea of examining the consequences of breaking taboos. When exploring the concept, we realized taboos and transgressions come in so many forms we knew we had a great idea for an anthology.
Aside from breaking marriage vows or promises to others, the shattered taboos within this collection cover family members who know no bounds, characters with surprising reactions or predilections, the loss of control, the loss of faith in God or other people, the recognition of oneself in one’s foe, fighting to survive traditions, laws, expectations, rules, and the actions of others. Fighting, in general. Yes, there are a few fights in this collection, as you might expect. There are loves lost, mistakes made, deaths, you name it. What you will also find is affirmation for some characters, though—empowerment through facing the darkness. We hoped to provide variety, and I think we’ve done so in this anthology.
The choice to solicit work from some well-known writers was one we editors felt would provide a draw for the anthology. Writers Bonnie Jo Campbell, Pam Houston, Kim Addonizio and J.C. Sasser, among others, wrote directly to the “breaking taboos” prompt and their work is new here, not published anywhere else at the time of our publication. We asked to use Joyce Carol Oates’ story, “Gargoyle,” and obtained the reprint permission so that the one who kicked off this idea with her words in the MasterClass and who believes strongly in writing about taboos and transgressions is represented within the book.
We also put out an open call for stories for writers at every level, and we were richly rewarded with that request. What a wealth of powerful stories we received. Deciding on the ones that went into the anthology was hard work! Ultimately, we got so much good writing, it looked like we had enough for two anthologies, but that wasn’t exactly in the budget. It was work, but it was a pleasure to have so much to choose from. Thank you to all who submitted.
Thank you, too, to Maurice Carlos Ruffin, author of the award-winning novel, We Cast a Shadow (One World/Random House). Maurice Ruffin read our favorite open submissions and selected one winner and two honorable mentions to receive cash prizes. His selections are the following:
• Winner—“She Sheds Her Skin” by Kyle Ingrid Johnson;
• Honorable Mention—“What Seems Fun or Nice” by Walter Evans;
• Honorable Mention—“Exit Stage” by Chavisa Woods. Congratulations to all. Each of those stories certainly explores dark sides to human nature and behavior.
This is a gritty anthology, one that doesn’t pull punches and one that looks at choices made and our very human foibles and mistakes, large and small. Special thanks to my co-editors, Kerry Neville and Devi Laskar, and to Kim Davis and Madville Publishing. Above all, thanks to all the writers who submitted work. We hope you enjoy the stories of wrongdoings that follow.
—Luanne Smith, Editor January 25, 2021

True Crime
Kim Addonizio
At the high school where Dawn and I were killing time before we could become celebrities, we went through the other girls’ lockers. The ones they didn’t bother to lock.
Stupid girls.
We took wallets, looking for money and fake IDs.
We took lipsticks and deodorant and eyeliner and sometimes just the whole purse, which was quicker than rifling through it and maybe getting caught.
Then we got stoned in the empty field behind the science building, or went back to Dawn’s, which was walking distance from school, and drank her grandmother’s vodka.
Her grandmother didn’t keep track.
There were three flavors to choose from: blueberry, grapefruit, lemon.
My favorite was lemon. Dawn didn’t have a favorite.
Make a choice, I said.
Fuck you, she said.
At Dawn’s, we binge-watched shows about serial killers.
The women were mostly in photos, and mostly dead. The men solved the crimes and had drug or alcohol problems. Sometimes they’d lost their wives or girlfriends, but not because of the serial killer.
The serial killer was always a man.
I once asked Dawn why she was named after a dish detergent.
Suck it, bitch, she said.
She cracked me up.
We found a fake ID that looked enough like me. I was a little shorter, but the hair was right.
Straw-colored, cut short. Brown eyes.
According to the shows we watched, most serial killers have a type.
Like, fat and slow.
Or sapling-tall, and blonde.
Dark hair, eyes like smashed Folger’s grounds.
Once, the detective was a woman. She looked like the Ice Queen but she helped the younger female officers.
My ID worked perfectly.
The guy at the door didn’t even ask Dawn, which was lucky because we hadn’t found her an ID yet. She looked older, anyway.
Ladies, he said.
The bar didn’t have a name that we knew of. It was just a big wooden door between a nail salon and a feed and supply store.
On the other side of the door, there were men.
This is all based on my childhood.
Or, not.
My friend in high school was tall and blonde. We stole things. But not from school. We broke into houses.
The houses belonged to our friends’ parents.
Though more often, they were the houses of girls we didn’t like.
Once, we crawled in through a rec room window and wandered through a house with the same floor plan as mine, except the living room and bedrooms were on the opposite side. I stole a diamond necklace.
It was just sitting there, shining on a dresser, surrounded by family vacation photos. A lake, the mountains, someplace in Europe with old buildings and a fountain.
They looked just like my family vacation photos.
We were afraid to take the necklace to one of the pawn shops across town, so I kept it hidden in my underwear drawer, under some Victoria’s Secret bras I was hoping to grow into.
I have it to this day.
Ah’m in need of deflowering, Dawn had said, batting her eyes very fast, giving me a crazy smile.
Praise be to Gawd! I said. I didn’t count the blow job I once gave in the bathroom at some girl’s party. Dawn didn’t count a few of them.
We needed to take the next step.
Deflower me! I screamed.
We started laughing.
Then she leaned out from the chaise lounge in front of her grandmother’s trailer and threw up vodka and Doritos into the dirt. I kicked some more dirt over it.
The steps are these: get in trouble, get laid, grow up, get famous.
At that girl’s party, I stole a necklace from the bathroom. It was hanging from the branch of a little brass jewelry tree next to the sink.
The boy had left already.
I mean, it was right there.
I never stole a thing except some cheap candy when I was a really little kid.
The security guard stood over me digging his thumbs into his belt, his fat belly slopping over it, and scared me so badly I never stole again, but I did get hauled in to juvenile court for a hit-and-run.
I was drunk, and ran into a parked car. I scrawled a note, like I was leaving my information, except that I wasn’t, and put it under the windshield wiper of the damaged car.
Somebody wrote down my license plate.
My parents grounded me. I watched a lot of true crime shows while I waited to go to court.
I pretty much lived at Dawn’s. I only went home at night, to sleep and change my clothes.
Dawn’s parents were gone, she never said where.
Her granny was an alcoholic. Also deaf. Let’s give her diabetes, too, why not?
That’s the kind of lives these were.
My mother was a psychic. She spent all her time on the phone saying, Uh huh, honey, I see a better man in your future. My father went to work at night as a security guard at the medical devices factory, came home and slept all day.
The adults in our life were like old furniture. We didn’t pay much attention to them.
We were going to be famous.
We weren’t going to spend our lives in this stupid town that smelled like hog manure all spring. T