Description
A New Yorker Best Book of the Year
"Slyly defiant and blazingly imaginative . . . Dayle's a genre-shattering writer, whose wit and intellect never cease to entertain." --New York Times bestselling author Paul Beatty
Framed as a reference work of humorous "entries" that offer trenchant social commentary, Everything Abridged presages a dark vision of the near future but tells jokes in the face of it: An intelligence agency operative uncovers a conspiracy to generate conspiracies and realizes his participation in the scheme. A Caribbean monarch meets four decades of American presidents and adjusts his country's foreign policy accordingly. Experiment participants are asked to bring back a gun as quickly as possible. A copywriter on a space colony advertises a weapon with the potential to destroy his home during an intergalactic war.
These and other linked stories, many of which feature a speculative bent--about being Black in America, law enforcement practices in an android society, Olympic speed walking, consumerism, nuclear war, and more--are interspersed with hilarious, one-line definitions for words ranging from abolition to zygote, creating a sharply humorous portrait of American inequality.
With his singular wit, sharp prose, and shrewd observations, Dennard Dayle captures the struggles his characters face to keep hold of their sanity in a society collapsing into chaos and absurdity.
Product Details
| Publisher | Overlook Press |
| Publish Date | May 24, 2022 |
| Pages | 352 |
| Language | English |
| Type |  Hardback |
| EAN/UPC | 9781419760969 |
| Dimensions | 9.1 X 6.1 X 1.3 inches | 1.3 pounds |
About the Author
Reviews
- Miscategorized. Calling this addictively book-shaped act of language subversion "stories" is like calling New York City "buildings"
- The nonstandard reference to all sorts of things it would have been disturbing to learn if you hadn't been laughing so hard
- Herald of a major new talent--what more do you need to know? Why are you still reading the cover and not the inside?"
"Dayle has broken every rule to create a rollicking satire skewering American hypocrisy. A short story collection that artfully manages to be part dictionary and part joke book, Everything Abridged is a must-read for anyone who still believes humor is the fast track to truth."-- "Jessi Jezewska Stevens, author of The Exhibition of Persephone Q"
"Dennard Dayle's 17 speculative tales, girdled by a Devil's Dictionary of 501 satiric definitions (literary, political, what-have-you), are by turns prescient of our anxious, conspiracy-fraught times and mournful of majestic worlds to come ruined by all too familiar hatreds. But the post-WWIII stand-up riffs? Truly funny stuff."
-- "Vulture"
"Funnier and smarter than pretty much everything else you've read in your lifetime."-- "Rivka Galchen, author of Atmospheric Disturbances and Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch"
"Slyly defiant and blazingly imaginative, like the best modernist literature, Everything Abridged is a powerful celebration of flaw and failure. It's a book that revels in the timelessness of obsolescence and the freedom of powerlessness. Dayle's a genre-shattering writer, whose wit and intellect never cease to entertain. This refreshingly original and powerfully funnycollection is a debut to remember."-- "Paul Beatty, New York Times bestselling author of The Sellout"
"This is one of the most useful books on the current American berserk that I have read in a long time. Kudos, Dennard. You said what we were all trying to say while we were very (angrily) chewing on our kale salads."-- "Gary Shteyngart, New York Times bestselling author of Super Sad True Love Story"
"With Everything Abridged, Dennard Dayle innovates form as much as he does content, creating a work that is funny and familiar, no matter if he's writing about comedians from Mars, battery-powered humans, or radicalized comic book writers. Combining wit, humor, and an uncanny ability to get to the heart of what can both plague and save us, Dayle is a writer who isn't ruffling feathers, but plucking the bird bare, and I am grateful as hell for it. Without a doubt one of the best collections I've ever read."-- "Mateo Askaripour, New York Times bestselling author of Black Buck"
"Written as a dictionary, with hilarious and so-blunt-they're-sharp definitions of terms like 'LimeWire, ' 'mouse utopia, ' and 'Perry, Tyler, ' Dayle's debut collection of stories is as likely to stun as it is to inform... incredibly entertaining and so damn illuminating."-- "Entertainment Weekly"
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