Short stories by Geoffrey Fox

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Review from The New York Times Book Review

“This frequently powerful collection of short stories enters Latin America as if through the rickety back door of a burlesque house: "Goo'mornin', all you wonnerful people," begins the title story as a tour guide leads his Anglo flock through the imaginary splendors of a city called Santo Abismo. The low-rent standup routine serves to lure unsuspecting readers to some pretty dank depths, and although the stories of violence draw from a familiar well (a peasant is mutilated, a village decimated, a rebellion plotted), when he turns to accidental clashes between conflicting cultures, Geoffrey Fox steps out on his own. Most fictional treatments of such encounters feature at least one ugly American, but "Welcome to My Contri" does not resort to easy cliché. The Northerners who appear here do not tramp carelessly on third world freedoms; instead, they inadvertently knock them over. A bit like characters from Graham Greene, they don't quite understand the rules by which others play the game, with the result that the game itself is deeply suspect. In this short and impressive work, Mr. Fox, who has taught Latin American politics and society at New York University, has created a memorable set of players who, while not natural antagonists (they often share the same dreams and goals), are still somehow bent on confrontation. Watching their sometimes vicious, often darkly humorous interactions leaves us thoroughly wrung out -- and aware that we are in the presence of a formidable new writer.” -- JAMES POLK
The New York Times Book Review, Sunday, November 20, 1988

Stories and articles on Scribd

Other stories and novel chapters, in print or on the web

On a Page from Rilke. In Above Ground. An Anthology of Living Fiction. New York: Harvard Square Editions, 2009; an earlier version appeared in Milk magazine, Vol. 6, December 2004

Stairways. Small Spiral Notebook, Vol. III, No. 1, Winter 2004. Adult content (i.e., explicit sex)

From a Trolley Stop in Amsterdam. Ink Pot Special Edition, Short Story & Flash Fiction Contest Winners, December 2003. A meditation on migration and displacement.

The Princess. The Copperfield Review, Summer 2003. An earlier version of what is now chapter e of the novel, A Gift for the Sultan.

The Gazi. The Copperfield Review, Spring 2003. An earlier version of what is now chapter 2 of the novel, A Gift for the Sultan.

Courbet And The Red Virgin (April 1871): A short story in the form of a screenplay, in The Copperfield Review, Summer 2001

Melliflua and the Fauns, Web del Sol's In Posse, Spring 2001 -- A fable.

Bravo, Scrittore! in Linnaean Street, Spring 2001 -- The unfocused enthusiasm of a Neapolitan co-ed boosts a writer's spirits.

A lua no ceu da baía, in Exquisite Corpse, Summer 2000 -- A gigantic Moon over Salvador da Bahia, Brazil, raises spirits and other things on a festive night.

Zen Garden. The Threepenny Review, spring 1999

The Fall of Randall Smullyan. Vigil Anti No. 4, Vigil 9,1993

Tidbinbilla. Central Park, spring 1992

Dancing with Lucha and The Lair. Yellow Silk: Erotic Arts and Letters. (anthology) New York: Harmony Books 1990; originally published in Yellow Silk (magazine) #25, winter 1987

Welcome to My Contri (title story of collection). Fiction International, fall 1988

Popo. Central Park, spring 1988

Valencia Afternoon. West Wind Review, spring 1987

Incident on Mother's Day. Central Park, fall 1986

Kitten on the Keys, Scribd, written in the 1980s

Here's One Union That's Going All the Way. Labor Notes, June 19, 1980

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