Selected Shorts: Meloy & McInerney

We’ve got two wonderful authors and two great stories this week on Selected Shorts, both about people in trouble. The first is “Red from Green,” by Maile Meloy, performed by Patricia Kalember. “Red from Green” follows a teenage girl on a dangerous camping trip, where trouble comes not from the great outdoors, but from the desires of men, as she negotiates the road from child to sexual object. The story appears is Meloy’s collection Both Ways Is the Only Way I Want It, which was named one of the 10 Best Books of the Year by the New York Times. The second story in this week’s episode is “It’s Six A.M., Do You Know Where You Are?” by Jay McInerney, performed by Jeremy Shamos. This story originally appeared in The Paris Review, and later became the first chapter in McInerney’s bestselling novel, Bright Lights, Big City. Famously written in the second person, it follows a smart, drug-addled young man, making his way through the city after leaving a lower east side club. He’s down and out, but there is magic in those pre-dawn hours of New York. A sense that anything can happen. Go here to listen for yourself on podcast, or here to find your local time/station.