Between These Pages, These Places by Frank Duffy

Whenever I start reading a Frank Duffy story, I can barely pull myself away. I let the dinner burn, the dogs whine to be let out, my own writing wait—so powerful is the lure of the arrangement of Duffy's words on the page. You get sucked down into this beautifully dark, intimate, almost salacious vortex that seems other worldly, and yet strangely familiar. And it's completely hypnotic.

So while my husband mops up the dog pee, I serve the burnt (it's Cajun blackened!) chicken, and try to pu...