Fiction | August 05, 2019
Fields of Empire
Joan Silber
My father, who meant well about some things and not about others, died at seventy, not that old. He’d been living in our house in New Jersey, with caretakers around him, and in the front window was a bumper sticker that said, Get US Out! !United Nations. He’d once been a member of the very far-right John Birch Society and maybe always was (we didn’t keep in close touch). In our years together, when the Cold War was still on, my father took pride in never being duped by the insidious plots of those trying to turn the US into a socialist hell, a pride that rode on urgency. Every day he woke up to important work. The sticker did not look that old, actually.
If you are a student, faculty member, or staff member at an institution whose library subscribes to Project Muse, you can read this piece and the full archives of the Missouri Review for free. Check this list to see if your library is a Project Muse subscriber.
Want to read more?
Subscribe TodaySEE THE ISSUE
SUGGESTED CONTENT
Fiction
May 17 2022
Gone
Gone Linda Wastila The late May morning I drove east from Chapel Hill, I didn’t pay much mind to the tracts of yellowed corn and soy or the tobacco-curing… read more
Fiction
May 17 2022
The Cadence of Waves
The Cadence of Waves Trent Hudley Leon showed up the day of the blackout in December of 1998, toward the end of some extreme El Niño weather we’d been having… read more
Fiction
May 17 2022
Palace Rock
Palace Rock by Mason Kiser On Mondays, we ruled the sea. Lightning lashed the whitecaps, and thunder shook the hull, and rain fell so slantwise that it ripped to shreds… read more