“The Missing Sister” by Robert Garner McBrearty appeared in Issue 38 and can be found here.
We’d love to hear more about this story.
The piece was inspired by a long-ago memory of driving my older sister to an institution in Louisiana. I was about five at the time, so the details are very vague, but in my memory, I have a sense that it was a day of tremendous sadness. It’s one of my favorite stories, really, because it brought up so many feelings and hazy, troubling memories. Really, it churned up a lot, left me sort of shaken, and I felt like it was coming from some special place in the subconscious.
What was the most difficult part in writing this story?
As I wrote the piece, I felt sadness and loss for this sister that I hardly really knew.
Recommend a book for us which was published within the last decade.
I’ll recommend an anthology of short stories, THE DECAMERON PROJECT, 20 new stories from the pandemic. Though they were stories that concerned the pandemic, they had a broader reach, I thought, and would have been good stories at any time.
If you could have a drink with any living author, who would it be? Why?
Well, I think I will make it coffee in the morning at a café as that’s when I most feel like talking. I’d like to talk to Tobias Wolff as I like his short stories and he sounds like he’s had an interesting life.
What are you working on now? What’s next?
I’ve got a new collection of short stories being published by University of New Mexico Press, so I know I will need to spend some time on the publication process. I’ve also been publishing some flash fictions in various literary magazines. My last book was a collection of flash fiction, and I’d like to publish another book of those. I have about thirty that are already published and a lot more that haven’t yet been published, so I’ll keep working on those for the time being until I get an idea for something longer.
Our thanks to Robert for taking the time to answer a few questions and share this story. Read “The Missing Sister” here: https://www.sequestrum.org/the-missing-sister.
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Robert Garner McBrearty is the author of five books of fiction, most recently a collection of flash fiction, WHEN I CAN’T SLEEP (Matter Press). His new collection of short stories is forthcoming in University of New Mexico Press. His stories have appeared widely including in the Pushcart Prize, Missouri Review, Mississippi Review, New England Review and Narrative Magazine.