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TBR 10th Anniversary Quiz

With 59 issues—all previous material stored in the archives—TBR is brimming over with fiction that cuts, digs, probes, pushes boundaries, transgresses, and sometimes exists for the sheer hilarity of it. 


Name the short story and the author:

1997

1. In this short story, a young boy takes up with his sister’s Barbie, talking to her, feeding her Valium, and eventually doing the dirty.  
“A Real Doll” A.M. Homes

2. Eldridge and Broom have a mad, salivating dog under their trailer.
“Dog”   Pinkney Benedict”

3. “Lookin eftir a fat cunt wi nae fuckin legs! That will be fuckin shinin bright! It wis her ain fault as well, the fuckin fat cunt. Fuckin things up fir me like that. No thit the game wis anything tae write hame aboot mind you, another fuckin  nil-nil draw but, eh.” 
“A Fault on the Line” Irvine Welsh

1998

4. “He was careful tying the rope to the hook and only let go of me once he was sure it was going to take my weight . . .Patrick sat in the corner of the room masturbating while I swung gently from side to side unable to move my arms or legs, a double amputee. He just  watched and wanked, which I decided was not on.”
"Trussed” Nicholas Royle

5. Set New Year’s Eve of the millennium, our protagonist worries about his addiction.
“Fire at the Atvian Factory”  Douglas Coupland

1999

6. “At her first parent-teacher conference with Dornan's parents (and their lawyer), Dornan's father was blunt, reciting a speech he'd made before: "So we screwed up the boy. So what? Unscrew him. That's your job."  Story set in Quillifarkeag, Maine. 
“Madness” G.K. Wuori  

7. Translated from the Spanish, this young mother goes to an audition for a porn movie where she’s told she’ll have to do ”a bit of French and a bit of Cuban.” 
“Fewer Scruples” Javier Marías

2000Some TBR covers

8. On his twelfth birthday, this Scottish lad spends the evening traveling around the city on a bus as we get the running commentary in his heid.
“Routes” Laura Hird


9. A loner and drifter ends up driving cross country with a young girl, dying of cancer, who longs to get away from her stifling, religious dad.  And it’s not sad. 
“Her Real Name” Charles D’Ambrosio

2001

10. Middle-age guy buys a low rider and life opens up, kind of.
“Driver” by Frederick Barthelme  

11. Mother picks up a runaway on the way to work, gives him a hundred and fifty dollars to get back to his people in Florida where she expects her married daughter, a guidance counselor, to pick him up the next day and speak to him about “careers.”
“When Animals Attack”  Alicia Erian

2002

12. New teacher at primary school must take over from former teacher whose husband had walked in the schoolroom and shot her in the head in front of the pupils.
“Some Rain Must Fall”  Michel Faber

13. London yuppies all envy the perfect couple, but no matter how much they try to emulate their panache—such as giving their kids names like Queenie, so quirky and charming, coming from the perfect couple—it’s never quite the same for the rest of them.  
“Soulmates”  Marian Keyes

2003

14. Young girl stuck with baby-sitting a 6-year-old on the streets of San Francisco finds it hard not to dip into her pill stash.
“Care”  Julie Orringer  

15. Guy’s car, in which he’s living and trying to sell, only goes forward. 
“First Day She’d Never See” Jesse Shepard

16. Another young girl, this one living in a boarding house, finds solace in listening to the radio with an 81-year-old man. 
“WLUV”  Emily Carter

2004some more TBR covers

17. Teenaged boy’s parents have been killed and he must deal with it in his own dark and haunting way. 
“The Beginnings of Grief”  Adam Haslett

18. Three guys illegally haul a sedated narwhal in their flatbed, encountering trouble when it begins to wake up.
“Fun With Mammals”  Pete Duval

2005

19. Veteran hitchhiker gets all caught up in a small Texas town for way too long.  Writer best known as a country-western singer. 
“Wheeler County”  Steve Earle

20. A Scottish worker in a sewing factory wins the lottery and—with strong motives known only to her—hires a band of bagpipers to march into the factory where she can resign.
“And the Winner Is” Laura Marney

2006

21. A university professor who on weekends lives far from civilization in a National Forest gets a knock on the door one night from two half-drunk women; his underwear plays a crucial role.
“Night Guests” Josip Novakovich

22. Scottish guy, living in America, takes his American girlfriend back to his hometown for a wedding. Against his better judgment.
“Easterhouse”  Rob McClure Smith

2007

23. Middle-aged professor at the end of his tether suddenly finds his life becoming more complicated by his run-in with a teenaged girl. 
“The Cold War”  Patrick Somerville

24. Repo man runs into ultra-bizarre repo situation.  
“On Sleepless Roads”  Craig Davidson

© 2007

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September-October 2007 #60
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