Showing results by author "Nathanial Wright" in All Categories

“I need you to find my daughter. She’s been missing for eight months.” If you’re a cop, you don’t want to hear those words because eight months means there’s no hope at all. If you’re a private detective, you might like those words because parents will keep you in billable hours for a long time because parents will keep you in billable hours for a long time. On any given Thursday, though, you don’t want to hear those words if you’re a private detective like Marty Gecko. Thursday’s aren’t work days. Thursdays are drinking days.

Nathanial J. Wright’s poignant tale of painful obligation in the relationships between fathers and children is as soft and understated as it is powerful. A coming-of-age story seen through the eyes of the father, the inevitability of obligatory action in the face of terrible sadness somehow fades beneath the triumph of the human recovery in the light of tragic responsibility. "Killing a Horse" is a remarkable achievement in short fiction.