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George Saunders Civilwarland in Bad Decline Stories and a novella Riverhead Books, first published 1996 #24-29  in the I will read and take brief notes on 300 short stories series Civilwarland in Bad Decline Absurdist and violent, the narrator recounts the decline and fall of a simulated Civil War park, replete with gangs, ghosts, a hired killer, and the narrator's own bloody death. The story follows the narrator's conscience; he starts out as a functionary, a yes-man, but by the end, as more innocent people are targeted and killed, he sees what he has helped destroy. There is a scene where one of the ghosts gets caught in some kind of violent loop and must reenact the murder of his own family, a ghost killing ghosts and the narrator himself will soon be a ghost. There is horror all around. Isabelle Some terrible people cope with special needs, murder, and love. Poverty, miseducation, and despair are the undertones. The Wavemaker Falters The ghost of a boy who was ...

Alan Heathcock "Volt" from the collection, Volt #23  in the I will read and take brief notes on 300 short stories series Sheriff Helen is back a few weeks after the flood of the story,   "Peacekeeper." I'm not sure "Volt" would entirely hold up without the previous story. Or, perhaps it would stand alone, but knowledge about Helen and what she'd recently endured certainly adds a rich layer to this story. There's another big storm and the already damaged town is further wrecked by too much rain. Helen is asked by law enforcement from the county seat to pave the way for an outstanding warrant arrest. So Helen has to approach the suspect's home and encounters stiff and violent resistance. In the meantime, she also has to grapple with her own guilt about keeping her slowly-deteriorating mother in a nursing home. Sheriff Helen deserves her own novel.

Tessa Hadley Married Love and Other Stories 2012 Harper Collins #11-22  in the I will read and take brief notes on 300 short stories series Married Love A young girl, 19, has an affair with a much older professor of theology. He leaves his 2nd wife and marries Lottie, against the wishes of her bohemian, non-married parents. It's a Casaubon situation, though the husband is patient but unhappy. Lottie has a number of children and is very unhappy. She tells her brother that "my life is so grey." Edgar takes up with his second wife for the comforts of marriage that Lottie is unable or unwilling to bestow on him. Friendly Fire Shelly and Pam sometimes do cleaning jobs together. In this story, they are cleaning the mess of men who work in a plant. The story is about Shelly, her worry over her son fighting in Afghanistan, the loss of her sexual drive. Hadley's gorgeous descriptions of the outdoors is juxtaposed with the filth of the warehouse. And she paints the sc...