Bullet in the Brain pt 2. Bullet in the Brain pt 1. Tobias Wolff's short story, "Bullet in the Brain" Reprinted by permission of International Creative Management, Inc.
Copyright © 1995 by Tobias Wolff. First appeared in The New Yorker on Sept. 25, 1995. Anders couldn't get to the bank until just before it closed, so of course the line was endless and he got stuck behind two women whose loud, stupid conversation put him in a murderous temper. He was never in the best of tempers anyway, Anders - a book critic known for the weary, elegant savagery with which he dispatched almost everything he reviewed. With the line still doubled around the rope, one of the tellers stuck a "POSITION CLOSED" sign in her window and walked to the back of the bank, where she leaned against a desk and began to pass the time with a man shuffling papers.
The Life Before His Eyes: Reading Tobias Wolff's "Bullet in the Brain" There comes a jarring moment in every reader's life when he connects with an equally profound moment in the writer's life.
Let me start that again.... There comes a jarring moment in every writer's life when he connects with his reader in a moment of earthquake proportions. Invisible Writer meets Invisible Reader, shaking hands with an audible clap of flesh. A word, a phrase, a sentence coils up from the page, snakelike, and leaps across the space between writer's finger and reader's eye. Audio: One with a Bullet.
Tobias Wolff Reads from 'Bullet in the Brain'