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Published Feb 2015
176 pages
Genre: Short Stories
Publication Information
Jonathan Lethem's third collection of stories uncovers a father's nervous breakdown at SeaWorld in "Pending Vegan"; a foundling child rescued from the woods during a blizzard in "Traveler Home"; a political prisoner in a hole in a Brooklyn street in "Procedure in Plain Air"; and a crumbling, haunted "blog" on a seaside cliff in "The Dreaming Jaw, The Salivating Ear." Each of these locates itself in Lethem-land, which can be discovered only by visiting. As in his celebrated novels, Lethem finds the uncanny lurking in the mundane, the irrational self-defeat seeping through our upstanding pursuits, and the tragic undertow of the absurd world(s) in which we live.
Devoted fans of Lethem will recognize familiar themes: the anxiety of influence taken to reductio ad absurdum in "The King of Sentences"; a hapless, horny outsider summoning bravado in "The Porn Critic"; characters from forgotten comics stranded on a desert island in "Their Back Pages." As always in Lethem, humor and poignancy work in harmony, humans strive desperately for connection, words find themselves misaligned to deeds, and the sentences are glorious.
"Starred Review. Lethem's humor ranges from rueful to sly to 'big silly,' and his careful, mostly unshowy writing has a gift for charming a reader into almost anything." - Kirkus
"In Lethem's collection, following the novel Dissident Gardens, the stories use absurdity, satire, or incongruity to contrast the quotidian ... with all the intrigue, emotion, and blunt force of reality." - Publishers Weekly
" With a few exceptions, these tend to be more intellectually involving than emotionally affecting. But readers willing to endure a little discomfort on the journey will find themselves in some fascinating new territory." - Booklist
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Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Jonathan Lethem is the New York Times bestselling author of ten novels, including The Fortress of Solitude and Motherless Brooklyn, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award. He currently teaches creative writing at Pomona College in California.
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