The Fiction Issue 2012

Dicey Decisions

George Cockcroft is a psychiatrist who makes all of his life decisions with a roll of the dice. Full story

I’ll Give You Some Threats

I texted some pretty mean shit from someone else’s phone to author Amelia Gray and she punched me in the face. Full story

Readers Digesting

We at VICE Australia love books—and lots and lots of cake—so we decided to make a book cake of our own as a test run for next year’s contest. Full story

Sheppard’s Video Game Pie

Prototype 2

This game offends me. Full story

The Room All to Itself

This is one of James Purdy’s last unpublished manuscripts. Written in 1978, the short play is every bit as uncompromising and brutal as his fiction. Full story

Genius in Exile

Reclaiming American Author James Purdy

Writer James Purdy's work is like a dark underground river that flows undetected through the American landscape and deserves to be waded in. Full story

Comics

Raw 10

The man wished that he could order her, naked, spreadeagled on a biscuit. One of the not-burnt ones. Full story

Combover

Make the Book Cook

I mean what I say, and I say what I mean. That’s the way you really rise to the top. Full story

Three Gangster Fables

Three tales of criminal chaos. Full story

Gaudifingers

The Gaudifingers contagion is no longer contained. It results in rapid aging and painful terrifying death within minutes. Anyone you know could at any time be Gaudifingers. Full story

Holy Unicorns!

The word “unicorn” appears nine times in the Old Testament. And unless you’re an 11-year-old girl, you are well aware that if it’s got unicorns in it, it’s a fairy tale. Full story

Three Kinds of People on the Crosstown Bus

Mostly it’s no-accounts and old ladies that ride the bus in this city. Most are fat. You never see these kinds of people on television. Full story

A Bird of Heat in Kino Bay

The Search for the Infrarealist Holy Grail and the Essence of Roberto Bolaño in the North of Mexico

Our driver announced he had a copy of ‘Pájaro de Calor (Bird of Heat),’ the legendary literary artifact that is so rare it may as well not be real. Full story

The Number

“What it is, is that I want to have sex with you. I think it would be really good for me to have sex with you.” Full story

Hunger Pangs on Paper

Everyone knows (especially your dad) that if you aspire to be a writer, you’re going to go through life hungry. Full story

Fan Fiction Is for Fuckfaces

Here is a sampling of my favorite top-ranked fan fiction stories, which your aunt will soon be secretly masturbating to. Full story

On the Illness

William was a puker. His expulsions—the color, consistency, and volume of a baby's—occurred after every sentence he spoke. Full story

The Poet

The less the poet wrote, the more books he bought. He was building a library for the person he wished he was. Or so he told himself. Full story

Records

Oh my graciousness, how does Ty Segall put out so many records? Meth? Full story

Reviews

Some books make us smile, others make us vomit. Full story

Literary Titans Are Super Freaks

I have taken the liberty of rounding up the dirtiest exploits of some of the most revered (and perverted) authors in the Western canon. Full story

My Father at the End

I did not talk to my father for most of the last year he was alive. It was a form of self-preservation. Full story

A Misbegotten Traipsing

The “Lost” Sherlock Holmes Story

Sherlock Holmes was really a trigger-happy neighborhood watch member, kind of like George Zimmerman with an obnoxious accent. Full story

Whores I Have Loved

She was not shaven and liked you to hold her ass from beneath with both of your hands. Full story

Jawbreaker’s Major-Label Album

The story of a writer writing a live-narrative of his Bolt Bus experience that involves writing about writing and writing about reading a story that might have been written about him. Full story

Phonies

Photos by Ben Ritter; Styling by Annette Lamothe-Ramos Full story

And Here Is My Good Big Centipede

An Unpublished Excerpt from an Interview with William S. Burroughs

In four pages of raw transcript, Burroughs talks about his reoccurring centipede nightmares, falling in love, and Hemingway's brain damage. Full story

Comics

The Janitor

It's a fight to the death over the Janitor's dick. Full story

The Magicians

There were two magicians and I hated them with everything in me. Full story

Oversoul

We can never, ever be sure when we’ve laid eyes on the shepherd of our last—not penultimate or semifinal, but last, as in absolute—chance of saving our oversoul. Full story

Fiction Issue Dos & Don'ts by Lorin and Sadie Stein

This month’s DOs & DON’Ts are an informal colloquium on contemporary street fashion, with Lorin’s critiques in blue ink and Sadie’s ripostes in red. Full story