See You in Paradise: Stories
The first substantial collection of short fiction from "a writer with enough electricity to light up the country" (Ann Patchett)
"I guess the things that scare you are the things that are almost normal," observes one narrator in this collection of effervescent and often uncanny stories. Drawing on fifteen years of work, See You in Paradise is the fullest expression yet of J. Robert Lennon's distinctive and brilliantly comic take on the pathos and surreality at the heart of American life.
In Lennon's America, a portal to another universe can be discovered with surprising nonchalance in a suburban backyard, adoption almost reaches the level of blood sport, and old pals return from the dead to steal your girlfriend. Sexual dysfunction, suicide, tragic accidents, and career stagnation all create surprising opportunities for unexpected grace in this full-hearted and mischievous depiction of those days (weeks, months, years) we all have when things just don't go quite right.
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J. Robert Lennon is the author of seven novels, including Familiar, Castle, and Mailman, and a story collection, Pieces for the Left Hand. His fiction has appeared in The Paris Review, Granta, Harper's Magazine, Playboy, and The New Yorker. He lives in Ithaca, New York, where he teaches writing at Cornell University.
"Unconventional yet emotionally resonant stories. . . . Much like his contemporaries Kevin Wilson or Wells Tower, Lennon is one of those writers who defies categorization and is as likely to fit comfortably into Weird Tales as he is into Granta." --Kirkus Reviews
"[Lennon] leads us through his own magic portal into weird, slightly-aslant worlds brewed and steeped in the hot coils of his brain." --The Quivering Pen
"J. Robert Lennon finds the uncanny hidden in the every day. His dark, subservise stories are both hilarious and unnerving. See You in Paradise is smart, inventive and full of the fascinating particularities of various wayward humans." --Dana Spiotta
"These are wonderful, fearsome stories, and I read each with a growing sense of unease and delight. J. Robert Lennon is a master of the dark arts." --Kelly Link
"To say that J. Robert Lennon writes speculative fiction is like suggesting that Tom Waits is known primarily for a couple of toned-down love songs. Dark, dazzling and reeling with a constant undertow of dangerous unpredictability, See You in Paradise is a brilliant return to the short story by one of the great masters of eerie domestic dystopia. In Lennon's world, anything can happen--and does." --Téa Obreht
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