{"id":30622,"date":"2025-02-03T08:00:58","date_gmt":"2025-02-03T12:00:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/?p=30622"},"modified":"2026-05-02T15:55:06","modified_gmt":"2026-05-02T19:55:06","slug":"david-rabe-my-friend-pinocchio","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/2025\/02\/03\/david-rabe-my-friend-pinocchio\/","title":{"rendered":"David Rabe: “My Friend Pinocchio”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

“<\/strong><\/span>My Friend Pinocchio”<\/b><\/span>
by David Rabe<\/span>
from the February 10, 2025 issue of The New Yorker<\/em><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

He’s still at it! David Rabe is 84 years old, and this is his fourth story in The New Yorker<\/em> in the last few years. I have enjoyed each, so I’m glad to have another. Best known as a playwright and screenwriter, I’m glad he has been writing more fiction, and I need to pick up his 2022 book Listening for Ghosts: A Novella and Four Short Stories.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here is how “My Friend Pinocchio” begins:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

When I broke Kenny\u2019s bedroom door, I was in the middle of a crazy argument with my girlfriend. Kenny and his wife, Cathy, were away, and, actually, I didn\u2019t ruin the door, but I damaged it and hurt my hand. This was the girlfriend I\u2019d run after in a panic-stricken, wild breakout that destroyed my first marriage and led to a nervous breakdown. Time in the breakdown lane. It turned out to be a kind of walking collapse, in the sense that pneumonia is sometimes \u201cwalking.\u201d So I walked around pretty much like shattered pottery glued back together haphazardly, all the while drinking, with a teeth-gritted determination to hang on to my girlfriend and survive. Not that pottery can drink or walk. But I could and did, and one of the things I did in that time was break Kenny\u2019s door.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Please feel free to post your thoughts below!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This week’s New Yorker fiction is David Rabe’s “My Friend Pinocchio.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30613,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"libsyn-item-id":0,"libsyn-show-id":0,"libsyn-post-error":"","libsyn-post-error_post-type":"","libsyn-post-error_post-permissions":"","libsyn-post-error_api":"","playlist-podcast-url":"","libsyn-episode-thumbnail":"","libsyn-episode-widescreen_image":"","libsyn-episode-blog_image":"","libsyn-episode-background_image":"","libsyn-post-episode-category-selection":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_use_thumbnail":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_use_theme":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_height":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_width":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_placement":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_use_download_link":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_use_download_link_text":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_custom_color":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-explicit":"","libsyn-post-episode":"","libsyn-post-episode-update-id3":"","libsyn-post-episode-release-date":"","libsyn-post-episode-simple-download":"","libsyn-release-date":"","libsyn-post-update-release-date":"","libsyn-is_draft":"","libsyn-new-media-media":"","libsyn-post-episode-subtitle":"","libsyn-new-media-image":"","libsyn-post-episode-keywords":"","libsyn-post-itunes":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-episode-number":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-season-number":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-episode-type":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-episode-title":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-episode-author":"","libsyn-destination-releases":"","libsyn-post-episode-advanced-destination-form-data":"","libsyn-post-episode-advanced-destination-form-data-enabled":"","libsyn-post-episode-advanced-destination-form-data-input-enabled":false,"libsyn-post-episode-premium_state":"","libsyn-episode-shortcode":"","libsyn-episode-embedurl":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[94],"tags":[1504],"coauthors":[505],"class_list":["post-30622","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-new-yorker-fiction","tag-2025-new-yorker-fiction"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/February-10-2025-Featured-Image.jpg?fit=699%2C400&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pqqvZ-7XU","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30622","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30622"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30622\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31045,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30622\/revisions\/31045"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30613"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30622"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30622"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30622"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=30622"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}