Tag: tom mcallister

  • Beautiful Sentences: Tom McAlister

    I hated the part of me that could watch this happening and forget it was reality, wishing for terrible things to happen for the sake of my temporary entertainment. Tom McAllister, How to Be Safe.  

  • Beautiful Sentences: Tom McAllister

    Where do people get stories? Do they go out in the world looking for interesting anecdotes? When they get home, do they write these things down and rehearse them? Tom McAllister, How to Be Safe.  

  • Beautiful Sentences: Tom McAllister

    The deepest miseries come from our capacity for remembering; if everything can be wiped away with a single swipe, then nothing has to hurt. Tom McAllister, How to Be Safe.  

  • Beautiful Sentences: Tom McAllister

    Middle-aged men saw news of the shooting and thought: The world needs me now. They put on their capes and swooped in to the rescue, but when they got there, they found out they had no superpowers. They were just sad men in capes. So they got angry and looked for a woman to blame.…

  • Beautiful Sentences: Tom McAllister

    I’m not sure what obituaries are for. You can tell people’s stories, but nothing you do is complete or accurate. It’s just a list of people they used to know and jobs they used to do. We spend so much time trying to be effective mourners, but we have no idea how to do it.…

  • Beautiful Sentences: Tom McAllister

    Shell-shocked acquaintances will say without irony that he had so much to live for, ignorant of the fact that the prospect of having to live like this for another fifty years was not the solution to but rather the cause of his hopelessness. Tom McAllister, How to Be Safe.

  • 2018 in reading

    I’ve noticed that over the past few years, the number of books I’ve read each year has been in steady decline. This year I read just 67 books (which, I suppose is still a fair amount). My favorite reads for the year, in alphabetical order, were: Best American Short Stories 2018 edited by Roxane Gay and…