Mary Robison
Mary Robison is an American short story writer and novelist. She has published four collections of stories, and four novels, including her 2001 novel Why Did I Ever, winner of the 2001 Los Angeles Times Book Prize for fiction. Her most recent novel, released in 2009, is One D.O.A., One on the Way. She has been categorized as a founding "minimalist" writer along with authors such as Amy Hempel, Frederick Barthelme, and Raymond Carver. In 2009, she won the Rea Award for the Short Story.
“You know, up until later on today, I never really knew how to drink.”
Mary Robison
“Way to pronoun," Saunders says.”
Mary Robison
“Once more I'm out, at one A.M., in some store trying to purchase bedding plants. The cashier woman says, "They're three for five dollars. You sure you need eight?"I"m distracted, looking at this man behind me.She ask, "You're sure you want to cut it off at eight?"This guy behind me in the checkout lane is wearing a sweater vest and his arms bare. He's waiting with a hundred-dollar bill to pay for Twizzlers and a porterhouse steak.Which leads me to look down at my own self.Do I know you?" he asks softly.No," I say, sighing. "Not in the way you mean.”
Mary Robison
“Something else that makes me angry is that I got too old to prostitute myself. I wasn't going to anyway but it was there, it was my Z plan.”
Mary Robison
“He wanted to tell her, from the greater perspective he had, that to own only a little talent, like his, was an awful, plaguing thing; that being only a little special meant you expected too much, most of the time, and liked yourself too little. He wanted to assure her that she had missed nothing”
Mary Robison