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2001 Season
 Tony Earley, an assistant professor at Vanderbilt University, has earned a place on Granta's list of the 20 Best Young American Fiction Writers and a National Magazine Award for fiction. He has twice been included in the acclaimed anthology, Best American Short Stories. The author's previous novel, Here We Are in Paradise (Little, Brown and Company, 1994), received critical acclaim in The New York Times Book Review and Details, among other publications. He lives with his wife and dogs in Nashville, Tennessee.
Here We Are in Paradise
Jim the Boy
Breakfast
During the night something like a miracle happened: Jim's age grew an extra digit. He was nine years old when he went to sleep, but ten years old when he woke up. The extra number had weight, like a muscle, and Jim hefted it like a prize. The uncles' ages each contained two numbers, and now Jim's age contained two numbers as well. He smiled and stretched and sniffed the morning. Wood smoke; biscuits baking; the cool, rivery smell of dew. Something not quite daylight looked in his window, and something not quite darkness stared back out. A tired cricket sang itself to sleep. The cricket had worked all night. Jim rose to meet the waiting day.
Continued...
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