“The First Summer” by Matthew Griffin
Recommended by Stuart Nadler
We went to the beach together the end of that first summer, stayed in a little two-room shack with plywood walls so flimsy the sea breeze would have knocked them down on top of us if there weren’t so many gaps between the boards for it to slip through instead of strain against. We slept for the first time in the same bed, so narrow he crushed me against the wall and had to peel his chest from my sweaty back just to roll over, but I rested better than I had in years. I loved how deeply he breathed in the night, how early and suddenly he rose in the morning, as though sleep were a thin covering you could throw back as easily as the sheets. I loved how he had to stoop every time he walked through a door.
Read the rest of the story at electricliterature.com.
Matthew Griffin is a graduate of Wake Forest University and the Iowa Writers' Workshop. He was born and raised in North Carolina and currently lives with his partner in Louisiana, where he is a visiting professor at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. Hide is his first novel.
Stuart Nadler is a recipient of the 5 Under 35 award from the National Book Foundation. He is the author of Wise Men, and the story collection The Book of Life. His new novel, The Inseparables, will be published by Little, Brown, in July.
"The First Summer" by Matthew Griffin is excerpted from HIDE, forthcoming from Bloomsbury on February 16, 2016. Copyright © 2016 by Matthew Griffin. All rights reserved.
Want it on your Kindle? Click below!
