Two Step

Prospect magazine commissioned this illustration for Two Step, a short story by Maile Meloy from a new collection called Both Ways Is the Only Way I Want It. “I wanted to write about love and adultery in such a way that the nature of the story changes, as you read it,” she told Prospect, “in which the power shifts among the characters and what you understand about them turns, and turns again.”

Maile Meloy’s first novel, Liars and Saints was shortlisted for the 2005 Orange prize. She is also the author of the novel A Family Daughter and the short story collection Half in Love. Her stories have been published in the New Yorker, Granta, Prospect and other publications. In 2007, she was named one of Granta’s Best Young American Novelists. Both Ways Is the Only Way I Want It (to be published by Canongate in March) was selected as one of the New York Times Book Review’s Ten Best Books of 2009. She lives in Los Angeles.

Art direction by David Killen.