Gogarty

Michael Deagler's "Gogarty," a man living in a shipping container in North Philadelphia gets to know his neighbors by becoming a knife salesman for a day. "Gogarty, as the narrator calls himself, is a character representative of that city you know and love despite also knowing everything that’s f***ed up about it," writes Halimah Marcus in her introduction. "Gogarty is at once neighborly and dangerous, and Deagler writes him with a generosity of spirit that transforms insult into affection. There is some quality of the Wild West at work here too, which is how it can feel to turn a corner and suddenly find yourself on street lined with abandoned houses, the glimmering center city skyline still easily in sight. I suspect that readers of this story will place Gogarty in their own cities, rehabilitated or declined, that have been special to Pittsburgh, New Orleans, Detroit, New York." About the Michael Deagler lives in Philadelphia. His fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in Glimmer Train, New England Review, Slice, and elsewhere. Links to his writing may be found at michaeldeagler.com. About the Electric Literature is an independent publisher amplifying the power of storytelling through digital innovation. Electric Literature’s weekly fiction magazine, Recommended Reading, invites established authors, indie presses, and literary magazines to recommended great fiction. Once a month we feature our own recommendation of original, previously unpublished fiction.