I got milk and newspapers from the nearby macolet, the store that sells everything. Its youthful Russian proprietor also supplied me with wine, a bottle every other day. To polish off a bottle of wine in forty-eight hours is not to have an uncontrollable habit; still, after a few months, I became defensive. “I want you to know,” I said while paying for a Tuesday-Wednesday fix, “that I buy a lot of wine because I have a lot of company.” He looked at me intently. “I'm so glad,” he said, with Chekhovian economy.
I was dispatching the wine myself, as we both knew.
From “My Junior Year Abroad” Best of Salon Travel
National Book Critics Circle Award
(2012)
The Boston Authors Club Annual Award
(2012)
Finalist for Story Prize and the Los Angeles Times prize and National Book Award
(2012)
Harold U. Ribalow Award
(2012)
My Bookstore
(2012)
Edgar Lewis Wallant Award
(2011)
ForeWord Book of the Year
(2011)
PEN/Malamud Award
( 2011)
Pushcart Press
(2008, 2001)
Best American Short Stories
(2012, 2006, 2000, 1998)
Matter of Choice
(2004)
Prize Stories: The O. Henry Collection
(2003, 1984, 1978)
A Certain Somewhere: Essays from Preservation Magazine
(2002)
New Stories from the South
(2001)
Wanderlust: The Best of Salon Travel
(2000)
Signs of Hope
(2000)
Antioch Review Distinguished Fiction Award
(1999)
The Writer's Handbook
(1999, 1996, 1995)
Syndicated Fiction Awards
(1991, 1987)