Esquire's "most gripping story you will read this year."

That was pretty funny -- I saw this thread and wondered, What story is that? I didn't know they put that on the cover, which is nice.

Thanks, Riv, too for the kudos. Much obliged. You must be the first person to have read that story in America. (Hopefully not the last, but maybe.) The issue hasn't even arrived at our offices yet. Your mailman must be like Mrs. Howell after she ate the radioactive sugar beets on Gilligan's Island. Look how fast she makes a bed!

Anyway, for the rest of you -- and I feel unseemly saying this, but the issue should be out soonish, and the story will be posted online sometime this week.

You might remember it from such threads as "Stories That Have Broken You." It's the monster that just about felled me -- and to be honest, I can't imagine many people will get through it in print, let alone online. It's 17,000 words, and it's heavy lifting. I have to hope a lot of people are stuck on planes and are forced to read it. Otherwise I fear it's Riv and my mom -- not humping, but as my sole readers.

The story follows the journey of a soldier killed in Iraq from the place where he died in southeast Baghdad to the cemetery in Scottsburg, Indiana. His name was Sgt. Joey Montgomery. I did my best to honor him.

That's the scoop, I guess. Hope that answers some of the questions here.

And I hope I don't sound like an asshole for answering them.

Speaking of which, I'm getting a chunk of my guts taken out Wednesday, so I'll be out of touch for a week, eating strawberry shortcake through a tube in my nose. So I'll be mostly absent if there's any further discussion. I'll be keen to catch up, though, on what people think. Feel free to rip away -- I'll be curious to know what I did right and what I did wrong.

Also, if you have nothing to do tomorrow around two o'clock, I'll be on NPR's Talk of the Nation, talking about the story. Listen and you will learn why I write for a living instead of talk.

Thanks again Riv, for the kind words.

 

GIMME GIMME GIMME GIMME GIMME GIMME GIMME!

 

Come to find out not a single place in this friggin' two-stoplight town sells Esquire, so I'll be driving to the nearest "city" to find it on my next day off. I'm confident it will be worth the trip.

Speedy recovery, Mr. Jones.

 

Pseudo, if you subscribe, the mail will bring it right to your door. And a healthy subscriber base might help Esquire pay The Jones enough to keep him out of the lucrative human organ black market. This week his gall bladder's going to some connoisseurs in Guangzhou. The Chinese pay a real premium to buy the powdered literary potency of the North American narrative artist!

 

Valid point, jgmacg, and one I should have considered well in advance of this issue's release.

I thought he'd already sold the gall bladder, though?

 

Yes, the gall bladder has been long powdered and consumed by the Maoists. This is the precancerous chunk of small bowel that first reared its ugly head in a little thread that I like to call, "My Colon." I have asked the surgeon to take a picture of it, and I will endeavour to post said picture here, before I post it on eBay.

Now enough about my guts, please and thank you. They haunt me enough as it is.

 

Is it too late to get in on some spleen?

 

I'll take the liver. I've already laid in a supply a fava beans and a nice Chianti.

 

Is that what she calls your bathroom reading material?