Essays

We confused the American Dream with simple accumulation. We spent vastly beyond our means in an attempt to give off a false impression of achievement, and that wild spending of borrowed money drove the current crash.

His writing is devastating in its beauty, evoking West Virginia’s mountain hollows with a sinewy and precise prose that comes as close to Hemingway as anything I’ve ever read.

I wanted to say I have come home
to bear witness, to read the sign
emblazoned on the church marquee—

We’re at the Potts Mountain Shooting Range
on a hot day in March, blowing ammo,

The first run, from Tampa to McAllen to Greensboro, was a bit of a lark. Maria was living in Tampa, and she was bored. So when a friend, someone she knew to be a Mexican drug cartel–affiliated smuggler, appeared at her door with a business...

Don’t make the mistake of calling her
angel or saint. The tremendous broad crowning
Troy’s war monument grips her sword

Here is my solitary city. This island of steel
and avenue. Towers with skeletons of organ

This week they are painting
the North Gulfport water tower.

On her wedding day, a bride should slip a good penny into her shoe
to ensure luck and wealth during the life of her marriage.