A Bind By Nora Seilheimer From issue 22.2 of Fourth Genre If you travel with a fear of flying, mental health experts recommend that you hold fast to the facts. Remind yourself of statistics that show that the most dangerous part of your travel day is the car ride to or from the …
Suppose This Is Globe By Prachi Priyam From issue 22.1 of Fourth Genre Last year, Baba and Dadi—my grandparents—visited us in California. They had been there for a few weeks before I arrived. In my own personal tumult just before my first medical licensing exam, I spent what time I could with them. …
Jennifer By Cuifen Chen From issue 22.1 of Fourth Genre This is how I know my teachers have come to my name on the class register: a pause. A squint so fleeting across their faces, I only don’t miss it because I’ve been watching for it. Their lips forming half-whispered shapes as they …
The Devil’s Greatest Trick By Vince Granata From issue 21.1 of Fourth Genre and a notable essay in Best American Essays 2020. I don’t hear the word inmate at the Whiting Forensic Institute. I don’t hear prisoner. The men and women who fill the facility, a maximum-security division of the Connecticut Valley Hospital, are clients. …
The Korean Woman By Helena Rho From issue 22.2 of Fourth Genre It is a Saturday in March, but snow flurries swirl as my daughter and I step out of her ballet school. She asks to go to Sam Bok for lunch. Again. I am reluctant to go to the small Korean grocery …
An American Drilling By Brett Armes From issue 21.2 of Fourth Genre When I started working at American Drilling, I was living on a guy’s back porch in the south Broad Ripple district of Indianapolis. I was 25, unemployed, and a college dropout. What little money I had I spent on cigarettes, scratch-offs, …
