Kind One (16 page)

“I have always liked that name of yours,” she said. She was old and stout and rattled like a boiler, but she said it and dug a tear out of my eye.

“Call me Joseph,” I said. “Call me Joseph and I will call you Ginny, and we will be called by our true names.”

“My name is Sue. Add on Scary if you want.”

“I never called you Scary.”

“And your name is Lucious.”

“Why wouldn’t you have me?”

She was wearing a ring woven out of purple thread on one of her fingers. She did not give an answer. Had already given it. Lifetime ago. She pointed with that finger to a large, thick envelope with a Chicago send-back address printed on it in neat handwriting that was foreign to me. Then she pointed at a thicker stack of papers sitting near it, which she had covered in her own hand.

“There’s true stories there if you care to read them,” she said. “Mine and hers both. You know who it is I mean.”

Then she asked me if after she was gone I would send her stack, along with a word or two of my own if I wanted, to the Chicago address the thick envelope had sailed down to her from.

“Don’t you die on me, Sue,” I said.

“Swear to me you will send it,” she said.

“I swear it,” I said.

“Lucious. Lucious Wilson,” she said.

There is snow come up as I have told the story of my name. Snow and small smacks of hail on the roof of this little house.

T
he mission of Coffee House Press is to publish exciting, vital, and enduring authors of our time; to delight and inspire readers; to contribute to the cultural life of our community; and to enrich our literary heritage. By building on the best traditions of publishing and the book arts, we produce books that celebrate imagination, innovation in the craft of writing, and the many authentic voices of the American experience.

LITERATURE
. We will promote literature as a vital art form, helping to redefine its role in contemporary life. We will publish authors whose groundbreaking work helps shape the direction of 21st-century literature.

WRITERS
. We will foster the careers of our writers by making long-term commitments to their work, allowing them to take risks in form and content.

READERS
. Readers of books we publish will experience new perspectives and an expanding intellectual landscape.

PUBLISHING
. We will be leaders in developing a sustainable 21st-century model of independent literary publishing, pushing the boundaries of content, form, editing, audience development, and book technologies.

Innovation and excellence in all activities

Diversity of people, ideas, and products

Advancing literary knowledge

Community through embracing many cultures

Ethical and highly professional management and governance practices

Join us in our mission at
coffeehousepress.org

Coffee House Press is an independent, nonprofit literary publisher. Our books are made possible through the generous support of grants and gifts from many foundations, corporate giving programs, state and federal support, and through donations from individuals who believe in the transformational power of literature. Coffee House Press receives major operating support from the Bush Foundation, the Jerome Foundation, the McKnight Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts—a federal agency, from Target, and in part, from the Minnesota State Arts Board through the arts and cultural heritage fund as appropriated by the Minnesota State Legislature with money from the Legacy Amendment vote of the people of Minnesota on November 4, 2008. Coffee House also receives support from: several anonymous donors; Suzanne Allen; Elmer L. and Eleanor J. Andersen Foundation; Around Town Agency; Patricia Beithon; Bill Berkson; the E. Thomas Binger and Rebecca Rand Fund of the Minneapolis Foundation; the Patrick and Aimee Butler Family Foundation; Ruth Dayton; Dorsey & Whitney,
LLP
; Mary Ebert and Paul Stembler; Chris Fischbach and Katie Dublinski; Fredrikson & Byron,
P.A
.; Sally French; Anselm Hollo and Jane Dalrymple-Hollo; Jeffrey Hom; Carl and Heidi Horsch; Alex and Ada Katz; Stephen and Isabel Keating; the Kenneth Koch Literary Estate; Kathy and Dean Koutsky; the Lenfestey Family Foundation; Carol and Aaron Mack; Mary McDermid; Sjur Midness and Briar Andresen; the Rehael Fund of the Minneapolis Foundation; Schwegman, Lundberg & Woessner,
P.A
.; Kiki Smith; Jeffrey Sugerman; Patricia Tilton; the Archie D. & Bertha H. Walker Foundation; Stu Wilson and Mel Barker; the Woessner Freeman Family Foundation; Margaret and Angus Wurtele; and many other generous individual donors.

To you and our many readers across the country,
we send our thanks for your continuing support.

Ray of the Star

978-1-56689-232-2

In a dreamlike European city, along a boulevard teeming with living statues, a man is running from his past, a woman is consumed by grief, shoes lead their wearers astray, and all must learn what it means to travel along the ray of the star.

The Impossibly

978-1-56689-281-0

When the anonymous narrator botches an assignment from the clandestine organization that employs him, everyone in his life becomes a participant in his punishment. His final assignment: to seek and identify his own assassin.

The Exquisite

978-1-56689-187-5

Henry, left destitute by circumstance and obsession, is plucked from vagrancy by a shadowy outfit that stages the murders of anxiety-ridden clients seeking to experience—and live through—their own carefully executed assassinations.

Indiana, Indiana

978-1-56689-144-8

As a young man, Noah fell deeply in love with Opal, a young woman with a penchant for flames. On a dark winter night, he will sift through his memories, trying to make sense of a lifetime of psychic visions and his family’s tumultuous history.