To celebrate the release of Little Beasts —a powerful debut novel by Matthew McGevna and the latest release from our Kaylie Jones Books imprint — today we’re pleased to feature Matthew McGevna’s story from Long Island Noir, edited by Kaylie Jones.
Where the f**k am I?
My eyes snapped open and scanned the inside of a run-down apartment. Brown stains covered the couch like leprosy, and the living room looked like it had been robbed . . .
After writing a suicide letter addressed to her fiancé, Sophie tooted three fat lines of heroin, then downed some pills just to make sure . . .
Parker had stolen half a million dollars from the men Mulligan and Harriman worked for . . .
The kids and I dash across town to library story time . . .
The tractor-trailer lay dead, an overturned behemoth in the roadside brush, its refrigerated guts split open and littering the highway with frozen wolf carcasses . . .
The wind won’t stop banging the bougainvillea against our fence, and the tap tap tap is beating into my skull. My eyes dart around the bedroom, but all I see are hulking shapes. I know they’re our dresser and bookshelf, but at night they look meaningless.
In their black eyes, one could see morning’s sun rise into sweet rapture . . .