The Proper Words for Sin

Praise, About the Author, Title Page, Copyright, Dedication

Praise for The Proper Words for Sin: “I’ve been a fan of Gary Fincke’s for many years, and this dynamite new collection just confirms what I already knew—namely, that Fincke is a short story writer of uncommon gifts. These new tales are subtle yet powerful, passionate but clear-eyed. Fincke lets his characters breathe while making the reader hold his or her breath. This is what I want from fiction. It’s all I want from fiction.” –Steve Yarbrough, author of The Oxygen Man and Safe from the Neighbors “‘You can learn to live with anything,’ one of Gary Fincke’s characters thinks in a moment of wonder, denial and sorrow. The stories in The Proper Words for Sin feature heroes whose justifiable fears and intractable losses become necessary lessons in the strangeness and fragility of life. Sometimes mordant, occasionally bitter, Fincke’s people counter their everyday terrors not with any flighty hope but sheer gritty determination. Welcome to Pennsylvania. Fine, close work from a master.” –Stewart O’Nan, author of Snow Angels, The Odds, and Emily, Alone “Richly detailed and generous. A moving collection.” –William J. Cobb, author of The Bird Saviors “Powerful, insightful, and cut to the bone.” –Joan Connor, author of How to Stop Loving Someone Praise for other work by Gary Fincke: “Gary Fincke writes wonderfully quirky, unpredictable stories full of vivid characters and unforgettable details and moments. There’s a lovely, hilariously wry sense of humor at work here, but there’s also a truly heartfelt compassion for the lives of ordinary working folks—those little failures and triumphs that make a reader gasp in both recognition and wonder.” –Dan Chaon, author of Among the Missing and You Remind Me of Me Gary Fincke is the Writers Institute Director and Charles Degenstein Professor of English and Creative Writing at Susquehanna University. Winner of the 2003 Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction, the 2003 Ohio State University/The Journal Poetry Prize, and the 2010 Stephen F. Austin Poetry Prize for recent collections, he has published twenty-four books of poetry, short fiction, and nonfiction, most recently The History of Permanence (poems); a memoir, The Canals of Mars; The Fire Landscape (poems); Sorry I Worried You (stories); and Amp’d: A Father's Backstage Pass, a nonfiction account of his son’s life as a rock guitarist in the band Breaking Benjamin. His work has appeared in such periodicals as Harper’s, Newsday, The Paris Review, The Kenyon Review, The Georgia Review, Ploughshares, American Scholar, and Doubletake, and has been read by Garrison Keillor on NPR. He has twice been awarded Pushcart Prizes for his work, including “The Canals of Mars,” which was reprinted in The Pushcart Essays, an anthology of the best nonfiction published during the first twenty-five years of the Pushcart Prize volumes. He has been recognized by Best American Stories and the O. Henry Prize series, and cited eleven times in the past thirteen years for a “Notable Essay” in Best American Essays. Gary Fincke grew up near Pittsburgh and currently lives in central Pennsylvania. THE PROPER WORDS FOR SIN West Virginia University Press 26506 Copyright 2013 by West Virginia University Press All rights reserved First edition published 2013 by West Virginia University Press Printed in the United States of America 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 PB 1-935978-88-8 / 978-1-935978-88-6 EPUB 1-935978-89-6 / 978-1-935978-89-3 PDF 1-935978-90-X / 978-1-935978-90-9 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Fincke, Gary. [Short stories. Selections] The proper words for sin / Gary Fincke. -- First edition. p. cm ISBN 978-1-935978-88-6 (Paperback : alk. paper) -- ISBN 1-935978-88-8 (Paperback : alk. paper) -- ISBN 978-1-935978-89-3 (ePub) (print) -- ISBN 1-935978-89-6 (ePub) (print) -- ISBN 978-1-935978-90-9 (pdf) (print) -- ISBN 1-935978-90-X (pdf) (print) 1. Short stories, American. I. Title. PS3556.I457P76 2013 813'.54--dc23 2012041398 The individual chapters of this book have been previously published as follows: “There’s Worse,” Witness (O Henry Citation) 2005; “The Out-of-Sorts,” CrazyHorse 2008; “The Fierceness of Need,” CrazyHorse 2007; “Weepers,” South Carolina Review 2010; “All the Big Things,” South Carolina Review 2013; “Private Things,” Beloit Fiction Journal 2009; “The Proper Words for...