Ninth Letter Serialization of "In a Distant Country"

Untitled, oil on canvas, Frankentiénne

Starting today, and for the next six weeks, I'll be the featured writer at Ninth Letter. The magazine is serializing my long epistolary story "In a Distant Country," in six parts, putting up a new section once a week for the next six weeks. The story is a companion piece to my novel-in-progress The Sexual Lives of Missionaries. It takes the form of letters home by minor characters from the novel. The letters trace through the decades the observations and complaints of others about the fate of Sheila Brocken, an 18-year-old girl who marries a lecherous 42-year-old missionary she meets on a work trip to Koulev-Ville, Haiti. The letters begin before their marriage, and continue through her husband's death in the dechoukaj uprising at the end of the Duvalier era, and on into an ever more uncertain future. Each installment will be accompanied by a painting by a Haitian artist. First up is an untitled oil painting by Frankentiénne, who also was the writer of Dezafi, the first novel ever published in Kreyol rather than French. I will post links to each installment as they are made available by Ninth Letter, and a link to the final PDF, which will include all six installments as the full version of the story:

Part One · Part Two · Part Three · Part Four · Part Five · Part Six

excerpt from companion novel-in-progress The Sexual Lives of Missionaries, at Guernica: http://www.guernicamag.com/fiction/2863/kyle_minor_7_15_11/