“Where We Must Be” by Laura Van den Berg

Recommended by Indiana Review

Issue No. 131


Some people dream of being chased by Bigfoot. I found it hard to believe at first, but it’s true. I was driving back from Los Angeles in late August, after a summer of waiting tables and failed casting calls, when I saw a huge wooden arrow that pointed down a dirt road, “actors wanted” painted across it in white letters. I was in Northern California and still a long way from Washington—which wasn’t really home, just where I had come from. I followed the sign down the road and parked in front of a silver Airstream trailer. It was dark inside and I felt the breeze of a fan. The fat man behind the desk said he’d never hired a woman before. And then he went on to describe exactly what happens at the Bigfoot Recreation Park. People come here to have an encounter with Bigfoot. Most of their customers have been wanting this moment for years. I would have to lumber and roar with convincing masculinity. I can do that, I said, no problem. And I proved it in my audition. After putting on the costume and staggering around the trailer for a few minutes, bellowing and shaking my arms, I stopped and removed the Bigfoot mask. The fat man was smiling. He said I would always be paid in cash.

Read the full story here!


About the Author


Laura van den Berg is the author of the story collections What the World Will Look Like When All the Water Leaves Us, a Barnes & Noble “Discover Great New Writers” selection, and The Isle of Youth, which won the Rosenthal Family Foundation Award from the American Academy of Arts & Letters and was named a “Best Book of 2013” by over a dozen venues, including NPR, The Boston Globe, and O, The Oprah Magazine. Both collections were shortlisted for the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award. The recipient of an O. Henry Award and a Pushcart Prize, her work has been anthologized in The Best American Short Stories, The Best American Mystery Stories, and The Best American Nonrequired Reading. Laura’s first novel, Find Me, will be published by FSG in February 2015. A native of Florida, she lives in the Boston area.

About the Guest Editor


Now in its thirty-eighth year of publication, Indiana Review is a non-profit literary magazine dedicated to showcasing the talents of emerging and established writers. Our mission is to offer the highest quality writing within a wide aesthetic. As a biannual literary review, IR considers previously unpublished fiction, poetry, essays, and art. IR is edited and managed by Indiana University graduate students and funded mainly by subscriptions, grants, and partial university support. Works by contributors to IR have been awarded the Pushcart Prize and reprinted in The Pushcart Prize Anthology: Best of the Small Presses, as well as in Best American Short Stories, Best American Poetry, and The O. Henry Prize Stories. Additionally, we are recognized as one of the top 15 most challenging fiction markets by Duotrope.


“Where We Must Be” from WHAT THE WORLD WILL LOOK LIKE WHEN ALL THE WATER LEAVES US: STORIES (Dzanc, 2009), originally appeared in Indiana Review. Reprinted by permission of Dzanc Books.


Listen to a recording of the author reading an excerpt from “Where We Must Be” here.