Summary

The literary journal Zoetrope, founded in 1997 by film director Francis Ford Coppola, proved an instant and spectacular success with readers and critics nationwide. Its stories have garnered awards from such publications as Best American Short Stories, The O. Henry Award Prize Stories, and many more. And it won a National Magazine Award for fiction in 2001--the youngest magazine ever to do so.A sequel to the successful first volume, this collection presents some of the best writing to have appeared in the magazine in the last two years, including stories and essays by Jennifer Egan, Pinckney Benedict, Peter Greenaway, Rick Moody, Francine Prose, and Toure, among others. In addition, two never-before-published stories commissioned exclusively for this volume appear here: one by Rick Bass and the other by Alicia Erian. The result is an exciting and vital collection, a must-have for readers of today's best writing.

Author Biography

Francis Ford Coppola has written, directed, and produced numerous films. The artistic director of Zoetrope Studios, he lives in San Francisco.

Introduction	p. vii
The Cavemen in the Hedges	p. 1
You	p. 23
The Evil B.B. Chow	p. 60
ZOG-19: A Scientific Romance	p. 83
The Creature Lurches From the Lagoon: More Notes on Adaptation	p. 114
Egg-Face	p. 128
Ogallala	p. 144
The Witch	p. 190
How to Tell a Story	p. 212
105 Years of Illustrated Text	p. 234
The Affairs of Each Beast	p. 241
Anything for Money	p. 273
[characters not reproducible]	p. 309
Goodbye, My Love	p. 324
A Hot Time at the Church of Kentucky Fried Souls and the Spectacular Final Sunday Sermon of the Right Revren Daddy Love	p. 353
Fialta	p. 369
Contributors	p. 399
Table of Contents provided by Rittenhouse. All Rights Reserved.

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Excerpts

Stacey RICHTERThe Cavemen in the HedgesThere are cavemen in the hedges again. I take the pellet gun from the rack beside the door and go out back and try to run them off. These cavemen are tough sons of bitches who are impervious to pain, but they love anything shiny, so I load the gun up with golden Mardi Gras beads my girlfriend, Kim, keeps in a bowl on the dresser and aim toward their ankles. There are two of them, hairy and squat, grunting around inside a privet hedge I have harassed with great labor into a series of rectilinear shapes. It takes the cavemen a while to register the beads. It's said that they have poor eyesight, and of all the bullshit printed in the papers about the cavemen in the past few months, this at least seems to be true. They crash through the branches, doing something distasteful. Maybe they're eating garbage. After a while they notice the beads and crawl out, covered in leaves, and start loping after them. They chase them down the alley, occasionally scooping up a few and whining to each other in that high-pitched way they have when they get excited, like little kids complaining.I take a few steps off the edge of the patio and aim toward the Andersons' lot. The cavemen scramble after the beads, their matted backs receding into the distance."What is it?" Kim stands behind me and touches my arm. She's been staying indoors a lot lately, working on the house, keeping to herself. She hasn't said so, but it's pretty obvious the cavemen scare her."A couple of furry motherfuckers.""I think they are," she says."What?""Motherfuckers. Without taboos. It's disgusting." She shivers and heads back inside.After scanning the treetops, I follow. There haven't been any climbers reported so far, but they are nothing if not unpredictable. Inside, I find Kim sitting on the kitchen floor, arranging our spices alphabetically. She's transferring them out of their grocery store bottles and into nicer ones, plain glass, neatly labeled. Kim has been tirelessly arranging things for the last four years-first the contents of our apartment on Pine Avenue, then, as her interior decorating business took off, other people's places, and lately our own house, since we took the plunge and bought it together last September. She finishes with fenugreek and picks up the galanga.I go to the living room and put on some music. It's a nice, warm Saturday and if it weren't for the cavemen, we'd probably be spending it outdoors."Did you lock it?"I tell her yes. I get a beer from the fridge and watch her. She's up to Greek seasonings. Her slim back is tense under her stretchy black top. The music kicks in and we don't say much for a few minutes. The band is D.I., and they're singing: "Johnny's got a problem and it's out of control!" We used to be punk rockers, Kim and I, back in the day. Now we are homeowners. When the kids down the street throw loud parties, we immediately dial 911."The thing that gets me," I say, "is how puny they are.

Excerpted from Francis Ford Coppola's Zoetrope: All-Story II by Francis Ford Coppola
All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.