Being alone can be exhausting, can be renewing. Some individuals look into a bleak future of solitude, spreading out slowly before them, or feel the quick, searing pain from the unexpected loss of a loved one. Some seem to naturally lean toward a life alone, separated from others and feeling complete freedom and independence. Loneliness haunts the characters in these stories, and becomes a force, a constraint, a defining feature in their lives.
Benjamin Alire Sáenz
He Has Gone to Be with the Women
No one had ever whispered my name the way he whispered it.
2013 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction
Guy de Maupassant
Miss Harriet
It was the most lamentable love affair of my life.
Katherine Mansfield
Miss Brill
How fascinating it was! It was exactly like a play.
Lorrie Moore
How to Talk to Your Mother
Tell your mother you are in love with Elvis.
Joyce Carol Oates
Gargoyle
Why do you keep so much from your husband?
Peter Orner
Occidental Hotel
“You’re not a maid,” he said. “You’re a vandal.”
