May 29, 2025, 9:30am
According to the powers that be (er, apparently according to Dan Wickett of the Emerging Writers Network), May is Short Story Month. To celebrate, for the third year in a row, the Literary Hub staff will be recommending a single short story, free* to read online, every (work) day of the month. Why not read along with us? Today, we recommend:
Leigh Newman, “Nobody Gets Out Alive”
This titular piece from Newman’s excellent 2022 collection shows what can happen when you leap into love before you can see the bottom of a pool. We follow a newly engaged couple who venture into the Alaskan hinterland (her family’s home) for an engagement party that goes extremely sideways. Carter, our closest brain, is bewildered in the wild. The story diagrams his slow realization that his beloved Katrina, and her strange, haunted Anchorage, are much darker than first blush conveyed.
I like Newman for her cheek, and a very reliable cocktail. Her stories always put precisely loving, idiosyncratic description (“Each morning at 6 am, he ironed his jeans in the kitchen. Each night at 6 pm, he barbecued a chicken on the deck wearing a parka patched with duct tape on the elbows”) right next to breezy insight. Like this line: “Love was dumbifying. It had no articulation except sex, happiness, an befuddlement.” I honestly think she’s one of our finest character portraitists, and I always scout the bylines for her name. Fall into this creepy evening, then do yourself a favor and grab the all-killer-no-filler book.
The story begins:
Getting past the mastodon took planning. The great plated skull was wedged between the fireplace and the credenza, leaving the two ivory tusks splayed across the carpet where a coffee table belonged. To exit the wedding party, guests either stepped over one tusk, then the other—a choice that required skillful footwork and a certain level of sobriety—or jumped over both with an awkward, last-minute leap.
*If you hit a paywall, we recommend trying with a different/private/incognito browser (but listen, you didn’t hear it from us).