The Morning Reading: The Kenyon Review (online!)

The venerable journal now has an online presence. Poetry, stories, memoirs, essays and reviews.

Check it out: The Kenyon Review Online.

Here's the beginning of a story by Eric Vrooman:

Hybrid Taxidermy

During the first half of the hurricane, they barbecued duck on the cinderblock patio, the house shielding them from eastern winds. They watched a transformer explode, shingles fly, and trees—not just saplings but full-grown live oaks, crape-myrtles, and magnolias—touch the ground with their leafy hands. It was Marlene’s idea to go into town.

She waded through waist-deep water in a yellow slicker. “The owners must have cleaned out the register, everything—even the penny dish. No liquor either, except a pint of root beer schnapps,” she said, patting her pocket.

The door to Miss Joy’s Groceries, Meat, Hardware, and Live Bait Shop looked like it had been gnawed by a beaver—Marlene’s work. She handled a crowbar too well to be fully trusted. Some night Wyatt would tell her something he shouldn’t, like how he half-owned the mini-storage facility in Wallsboro or the whereabouts of an old toaster stuffed with two grand in twenties. But since she arrived, his life had been remade. She fixed the satellite dish, played strip mini-golf, and whistled Sinatra songs. And she taught him new, quicker ways to do everything. He shaved in the shower now, used a floodlight for frog gigging, and emptied the whole pack of bacon into the skillet at once.

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