John of Book Mine Set reviewed this story back in June.  He was looking for stories set in Egypt and ran across this one.  His review intrigued me enough to want to read this story for myself.

Niko’s fiancee, Carly had just left him to study for her “Master’s Degree in Skeletons..”  He was in his Cairo apartment when the khamaseen started up.  Khamaseen is “fifty days of cyclonic wind which whirled up from the Saharan desert into Egypt”, which his neighbor, Margarete warned him of when he moved in.

All of a sudden debris and a bird were whirled into his apartment.  Then somehow, a bunch of feral cats came in too.  He called his selfish friend, Javier to ask for help however, he was on his way to pick up his new TV and wouldn’t come over to help.

It became clearly apparent that Niko didn’t have any friends.  His crisis was an over the top symbolism for that.  However, the story was an interesting character study of Niko and while I didn’t love the story, I did like it.  You can read the story on Gretchen McCullough’s website, here.

A couple of month after I started this blog, I read and reviewed Jefferey Eugenides, Middlesex.  If you click to read it, you will see that my reviews have improved some since then.  LOL!  However, I did really like the book.  So, when I came across this short story last week at The New Yorker, I had to read it. 

Back in June, Margot of Joyfully Retired reviewed the short story, Charles by Shirley Jackson.  I had never read anything by this author, so I thought, so decided to read this story.


It was Laurie’s first day of kindergarten and when he arrived back home he couldn’t wait to tell his parents about his day.  He told them about a boy named Charles and how badly he behaved.  


Everyday, Laurie came home from school and told his parents about Charles and what bad things he did.