Told in scraps of memories, visceral experiences, and excerpts from psychological reports, Jón recounts his childhood from an evolving perspective. Though isolated, and constantly pushed away (by family, schoolmates, friends) because of his strangeness, little Jón has admirable verve while retrospective Jón makes sure we laugh at the most dismal situations (setting a bedroom on fire, Dad's stinking barrel of fermenting meat and fish parts).
$14.95
ISBN: 9781941920121
Availability: It's Complicated--Contact us for more info
Published: Deep Vellum Publishing - May 5th, 2015
$26.95
ISBN: 9781941040201
Availability: It's Complicated--Contact us for more info
Published: Tin House Books - February 22nd, 2016
Taylor's narrative style parallels the movements of the book's central figure, El Indio: roaming the borderlands, looking for what's hidden in bushes, for openings in the fence, a method of trespass. Though there is a clear motivation to Taylor's search--to find out where all of the bicycles came from--he gives us scenes that skirt the center, letting us piece together the journey ourselves, which turns out to be a heartbreaking one.
Jamie
$15.95
ISBN: 9781593766337
Availability: Available at Wholesaler
Published: Soft Skull Press - January 12th, 2016
There's a spare yet unfiltered quality to Helle Helle's prose which, when you get the hang of it, is a brilliant reflection of the desultory young narrator. As she navigates Denmark's landscapes, train stations & department stores, a bird call or lost picnic basket make random appearances & are given the same weight as a funeral or break-up. Recommended to fans of Sheila Heti's How Should A Person Be?, Lydia Davis's The End of the Story, Jenny Offill's Dept. of Speculation.
Jamie
$29.95
ISBN: 9780811220293
Availability: On Order at the Wholesaler
Published: New Directions - March 3rd, 2015
A beautifully strange and packed short story collection. You get caught up with Aira in his preposterous logic problems and descriptions of artwork—such as a historical scene on a ship deck depicted in a folded cafe napkin, a dissolving Mona Lisa that becomes Debussyscented candles. Aira poses important questions, like: Would you rather have a Picasso or be a Picasso? For lovers of Borges, Cortazar, Calvino, Murakami.
Jamie
$14.00
ISBN: 9780802145628
Availability: Available at Wholesaler
Published: Grove Press - November 15th, 2011
“It will be difficult to continue this story of mine. I don’t even know if it is a story. It is difficult to call this a story, this constant ... clustering and falling apart ... of elements ...”. Leaving Warsaw on foot, Witold, our neurotic and sputtering narrator, would like to escape the Polish bourgeoisie. Instead he finds himself trapped in a rural inn, with his increasingly absurd obsessions. A pleasure akin to that of reading Flann O’Brien, Kafka, Bruno Schulz.
Jamie
$24.95
ISBN: 9781101870150
Availability: It's Complicated--Contact us for more info
Published: Pantheon Books - June 2nd, 2015
Spend some time with a charmingly self-deprecating entomologist, who compares himself at times to a silverfish, a literary nudist, a trigger-happy hunter, a caliph in a pleasure garden, a drunken Polish translator, a pygmy owl and a dancer. Rather than anthropomorphizing the hover flies he studies, Sjöberg hymenopterizes himself and other collectors. “Fly people,” he assures us, are a species of their own.
Jamie
$16.95
ISBN: 9781564782113
Availability: Available at Wholesaler
Published: Dalkey Archive Press - May 1st, 1988
Narrated by the last woman alive, and reflecting her ten years of isolation, WM is a novel of scraps and associations. All narrator Kate has left by which to remember humanity are the books and paintings she collects and interprets in these pages. What do they make (and make up for)? For a patient reader (who does not need plot), there's wonderful humor in Markson's play with Wittgenstein's linguistics and in the leveling of all cultural artifacts in Kate's hands.
Jamie
$16.00
ISBN: 9780679740735
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Vintage - January 31st, 1995
An impressionistic novel with incredible visual detail--of the qualities that compose an intimately-known body, the accumulated objects and meals that make a home, the transitions of light that mark seasons and then decades. In lieu of a substantial plot, Salter delivers lists of evocative observations and sparse but perfect dialogue. From the 1950s through 70s, New York City to then-rural Westchester.
Jamie
$15.95
ISBN: 9780345806871
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Vintage - October 7th, 2014
A wonderfully disjointed narrative detailing the
inexhaustible speculations (neuroses) of an apprehensive new mother in
Brooklyn. At times reminiscent of Lydia Davis' bizarrely specific-vague
short stories, with humor and form more akin to Mary Robison's One DOA, One on the Way, Renata Adler's Speedboat or Annie Dillard's The Writing Life.
Jamie
