Searching for the writer of a half-remembered short story
February 4, 2011 5:57 PM Subscribe
Trying to find an author that wrote at least one story for the New Yorker perhaps 20 to 30 years ago, about being in the Marines, not fitting in somehow, getting a rifle butt to the temple, being discharged and suffering brain trauma.
I'm pretty certain I read this in the New Yorker and of the other details above. Everything else is fuzzy. I grew up with that magazine always around the house, and I feel vaguely like this is one of the first fiction pieces that I felt compelled to read. But I don't even know for sure that it's fiction; I think it is, but it would definitely be written in the first-person. I distinctly remember (or think I do) a line of dialogue: "Fuck the Corps. Fuck the whole green apple" but I get nothing googling for it. Searching the New Yorker's site (with their own search engine or the google index) is also unsuccessful.
I don't have any other details. I assume the author had some kind of career, but as a novelist, short-story writer, playwright, I don't know.
I'm pretty certain I read this in the New Yorker and of the other details above. Everything else is fuzzy. I grew up with that magazine always around the house, and I feel vaguely like this is one of the first fiction pieces that I felt compelled to read. But I don't even know for sure that it's fiction; I think it is, but it would definitely be written in the first-person. I distinctly remember (or think I do) a line of dialogue: "Fuck the Corps. Fuck the whole green apple" but I get nothing googling for it. Searching the New Yorker's site (with their own search engine or the google index) is also unsuccessful.
I don't have any other details. I assume the author had some kind of career, but as a novelist, short-story writer, playwright, I don't know.
Best answer: Nope, not 1994 -- 1991.
Linked here.
Jones first two collections of short stories absolutely lived on the page, or maybe jumped off of it, or both of those. First was The Pugilist at Rest; second was Cold Snap. Great reads, both of these collections...
posted by dancestoblue at 6:11 PM on February 4, 2011 [2 favorites]
Linked here.
Jones first two collections of short stories absolutely lived on the page, or maybe jumped off of it, or both of those. First was The Pugilist at Rest; second was Cold Snap. Great reads, both of these collections...
posted by dancestoblue at 6:11 PM on February 4, 2011 [2 favorites]
Response by poster: The Pugilist At Rest is not the exact story, maybe; I only say that because I don't see that "green apple" line that stuck in my memory, but I'm sure this is the guy. I did seem to transpose 'getting' with 'giving' a rifle butt to the head, so maybe this is it... all I can say for sure is that I'll enjoy re-acquainting myself with this writer, and glad to have the chance to do it. Thanks very much!
posted by $0up at 8:04 PM on February 4, 2011
posted by $0up at 8:04 PM on February 4, 2011
It may have been the second story in that collection, Break On Through, which is roughly about that same character except it's almost completely set in Viet Nam. If memory serves, one of the characters does reference green, in the way that Marines talk about it, "Don't you talk bad about my green ________" where _______ is in reference to some facet of Marine life; their uniforms were green then, in those jungles, everything was green, probably sand-colored anymore....
posted by dancestoblue at 9:40 PM on February 4, 2011
posted by dancestoblue at 9:40 PM on February 4, 2011
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posted by dancestoblue at 6:03 PM on February 4, 2011