First published 1981
A teacher finds himself trapped in third grade, towering over his eight-year-old classmates in "Me and Miss Mandible." A son watches his father's tears fall like rain in shifting, surreal visions. Jazz musicians compete for an impossible crown. Barthelme places ordinary people in extraordinary situations where logic bends and language fractures. His characters navigate worlds where conversations spiral into absurdity and everyday objects take on strange significance. A retrospective spanning his career, this collection features standout pieces like "The King of Jazz" alongside nine previously unpublished stories. Each tale operates like a funhouse mirror, reflecting familiar experiences through warped glass. The stories resist easy interpretation, instead offering moments of dark humor and unexpected beauty. Barthelme transforms the mundane into the mysterious, finding poetry in fragmented dialogue and meaning in seemingly random encounters.
Genres: short-stories, literary-fiction, american-fiction, 20th-century, 21st-century
Vibes: intimate, thought-provoking, whimsical
Tropes: dark-humor, unexpected-beauty
Period: 20th-Century, 21st-Century
457 pages · Hardcover · Putnam Adult