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← Back to all issuesGranta 38: We’re So Happy!
Winter 1991
Featuring the fictional début of Bill Morris, set in the design department of General Motors, between New Year’s Day and New Year’s Eve 1954: the year (Elvis Presley, Marilyn Monroe, Dwight Eisenhower, and Edgar Hoover) when America changed. Plus: Ivan Klìma, Tracy Kidder, Eugene Richards, Louise Erdrich, Adam Mars-Jones, and Sue Halpern.
From this Issue
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Motorama 1954
Bill Morris
‘It was at sundown on New Year's Day 1954 that Claire Hathaway began to feel embarrassed by her new television set.’
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Anatomy of a Cheeseburger
Jeremy Rifkin
‘Ray Kroc, one of the founders of the McDonald's hamburger chain, changed American eating habits as effectively as Henry Ford changed the way Americans travel.’
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The Night of the Railwaymen’s Ball
Ivan Klíma
‘The season of ballroom dancing was upon us and crime was on the increase. I have little interest in ballroom dancing – I don't dance.’
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The Adjuster
Tracy Kidder
’On the day my career at Fireplace Mutual began, six of us recruits filed into the smoke-filled office of the Supervisor of Adjusters, Mr Kreisky.’
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Night Prayer
Louise Erdrich
‘It was hot and windy in the garden of Our Lady of the Wheat, but inside the convent it was worse.’
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Philadelphia
Eugene Richards
‘The ‘War Zone’ in Philadelphia is just north of the centre, about a mile and a half from City Hall and across the Street from Temple University.’
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Bears in Mourning
Adam Mars-Jones
‘When I think about it, it was terrible the way we behaved when Victor died. We behaved as if we were ashamed of him, or angry.’
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Brazil
Sue Halpern
‘Water curls through the Fortaleza slum: sewer water. It drains between shacks made of sticks and mud, and is pretty when it catches the sun’.
