This New and Poisonous Air (21 page)

We cannot be certain when Southey sat down to finish his story of Silverlocks, but we imagine him in the dark of the evening, an oil lamp burning on his French writing desk which had been restored to the study, replacing the one that was buried in the yard.

His wife and son are sleeping. Napoleon is once again safely ensconced at Fontainebleau. And, despite the poet’s attempts to bar their way, the animal-headed gods of Egypt are moving toward their cottage again, shaking pines as they pass by on massive legs. The gods learned long ago to decorate their homes with European artifice. They find pleasure in the rustic furnishings and sensible fireplaces. They festoon their tables with tatted lace and unostentatious bowls of fruit. And what do they find sleeping in their bed? What have their predilections drawn? She with her silver face, hard and bright as a funeral mask, and her hair, a silent ivory dome.

Thanks to the editors of the publications in which the following stories first appeared:

 

Arts and Letters
: “A Memory of His Rising”;
Ascent
: “Of Wool”;
Conjunctions
: “The Automatic Garden”;
The Greensboro Review
: “Fall, Orpheum”;
Quarterly West
: “Beneath Us”;
StoryQuarterly
: “A Man of History”;
Third Coast
: “There Are No Bodies Such as This;
Web Conjunctions
: “Egyptomania.”

 

For their editorial assistance and general encouragement, I’d like to thank Brian Leung, David Lazar, Jennie Fauls, Scott Blindauer, Greg Miller, Elizabeth and Sarah Wehri, Garnett Kilberg Cohen, Paula Payton Gurrie and Cora Jacobs. I would like to thank my mother and father for their constant kindness and support, and Chris Breier for his thoughts and affection.

Adam McOmber is the Assistant Director of Creative Nonfiction at Columbia College Chicago where he teaches both creative nonfiction and mythology. He is also the associate editor of the literary magazine
Hotel Amerika
. His work has been recently published in
Conjunctions
,
StoryQuarterly
,
Third Coast
,
The Greensboro Review
,
Arts & Letters
,
Ascent
,
North Atlantic Review
, and
Web Conjunctions
. Currently, he is at work on a novel.

This New and Poisonous Air
, stories by Adam McOmber, is set in ITC Veljovic, a digital font designed by Jovica Veljovic (1954–), which displays a crisp precision, as if the letters were cut in stone rather than drawn with pen and ink. The display type is IllegalEdding.

 

The publication of this book is made possible, in part, by the special support of the following individuals:

Copyright © 2011 by Adam McOmber

All rights reserved
Manufactured in the United States of America

 

 

For information about permission to reuse any material from this book please contact The Permissions Company at
www.permissionscompany.com
or e-mail [email protected].

 

Publications by BOA Editions, Ltd.—a not-for-profit corporation under section 501 (c) (3) of the United States Internal Revenue Code—are made possible with funds from a variety of sources, including public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency; the Literature Program of the National Endowment for the Arts; the County of Monroe, NY; the Lannan Foundation for support of the Lannan Translations Selection Series; the Sonia Raiziss Giop Charitable Foundation; the Mary S. Mulligan Charitable Trust; the Rochester Area Community Foundation; the Arts & Cultural Council for Greater Rochester; the Steeple-Jack Fund; the Ames-Amzalak Memorial Trust in memory of Henry Ames, Semon Amzalak and Dan Amzalak; and contributions from many individuals nationwide. See Colophon on page 180 for special individual acknowledgments.

 

 

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

 

McOmber, Adam.

p. cm.

eISBN : 978-1-934-41479-8

I. Title.
PS3613.C58645T48 2011
813’.6—dc22

2010029669

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