David Shields and Matthew Vollmer, both writers and professors, have gathered forty short fictions that they've found to be seriously hilarious and irresistibly teachable (in both writing and literature courses): counterfeit texts that capture the barely suppressed frustration and yearning that percolate just below the surface of most official documents. The innovative stories collected in Fakes including ones by Ron Carlson (a personal ad), Amy Hempel (a complaint to the parking department), Rick Moody (Works Cited), and Lydia Davis (a letter to a funeral parlor) trace the increasingly blurry line between fact and fiction and exemplify a crucial form for the twenty-first century.With contributions by:David MeansGeorge SaundersStanley CrawfordMark HallidayCharles YuCaron A. LevisLorrie MooreKevin WilsonElizabeth Stuckey-FrenchAmy HempelDonald BarthelmeJoe WenderothLaura Jayne MartinRon CarlsonChris BachelderRob CohenMieke EerkensJoseph SalvatoreDaniel OrozcoGreg BurnhamJack PendarvisRobin HemleyKari Anne RoyRachel B. GlaserWendy BrennerLucas CooperSamantha HuntCharles McLeodMatthew WilliamsonArda CollinsDavid ShieldsMelanie Rae ThonMatthew VollmerLydia DavisPaul TherouxRick MoodyMichael MartoneJ. Robert LennonJonathan Safran FoerJ. G. Ballard

    She's the strong one. The one who escaped Herne Bay and the memories it holds. Her sister Sally didn't. Instead, she drinks. But when their mother dies, Kate is forced to return to the old family home. And on her first night she is woken by a terrifying scream.What secret has Kate stumbled upon?And is she strong enough to uncover the truth . . . and make it out alive?

    She brilliantly captures the close but guarded ties between residents of a grieving small town, and delivers dialogue with the uncommon and impressive mix of precision, poignancy, and believability.” —Minneapolis Star Tribune“McGhee is a beautiful writer, especially in her sense of place and her precision in describing characters.” —Twin Cities Pioneer Press“McGhee, author of the critically acclaimed novel Shadow Baby, portrays in spare and beautiful prose a setting and community that recall the cold, hard landscapes of Richard Russo’s fiction.” —Book PageWas It Beautiful? is a powerful and tender portrayal of loss and renewal at midlife. With singular grace and humor, Alison McGhee pays loving attention to the details of life in the Adirondacks and to the small kindnesses and idiosyncrasies that make each member of a community precious and unique.

    In her twenty years as a florist she has stood behind the counter at the Flower Shoppe with her faithful dog, Clementine, resting at her feet. A customer can walk in, and with just a glance or a few words, Ruby can throw together the perfect arrangement for any occasion. Whether intended to rekindle a romance, mark a celebration, offer sympathy, or heal a broken heart, her expressive floral designs mark the moments and milestones in the lives of her neighbors. It’s as though she knows just what they want to say, just what they need. Yet Ruby’s own heart’s desires have gone ignored since the death of her beloved sister. It will take an invitation from a man who’s flown to the moon, the arrival of a unique little boy, and concern from a charming veterinarian to reawaken her wounded spirit. Any life can be derailed, but the healing power of community can put it right again.

    In the life she constructs as a barrier against the emotional wreckage of her family tragedy, Anna settles comfortably into a career as a teacher of deaf children. But a challenge arrives—in the form of a young girl. Adrea’s disarming vulnerability and obvious need for love offer Anna the possibility of reconnecting with the world around her—if she has the courage to open her heart. In this debut novel, Rachel Stolzman has crafted a moving and poetic witness to love’s power to transcend grief, pain, and the constraints of human language. The Sign for Drowning is a poignant story of loss and the unexpected occasions of grace that enable us to heal from it and grow beyond it.

    The characters in The Lemon Table are facing the ends of their lives–some with bitter regret, others with resignation, and others still with defiant rage. Their circumstances are just as varied as their responses. In 19th-century Sweden, three brief conversations provide the basis for a lifetime of longing. In today’s England, a retired army major heads into the city for his regimental dinner–and his annual appointment with a professional lady named Babs. Somewhere nearby, a devoted wife calms (or perhaps torments) her ailing husband by reading him recipes. In stories brimming with life and our desire to hang on to it one way or another, Barnes proves himself by turns wise, funny, clever, and profound–a writer of astonishing powers of empathy and invention.

    Ask ANYBODY.Rumor has it that Alice Franklin is a slut. It's written all over the bathroom stall at Healy High for everyone to see. And after star quarterback Brandon Fitzsimmons dies in a car accident, the rumors start to spiral out of control.In this remarkable debut novel, four Healy High students—the girl who has the infamous party, the car accident survivor, the former best friend, and the boy next door—tell all they know.But exactly what is the truth about Alice? In the end there's only one person to ask: Alice herself.

    Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge.

    It's how he makes sense of the world, and how he tries to convince himself that he's a real boy and not just a character in his father's bestselling cult-classic book. Finn has two things going for him: his best friend, the possibly-insane-but-definitely-excellent Cade Hernandez, and Julia Bishop, the first girl he's ever loved. Then Julia moves away, and Finn is heartbroken. Feeling restless and trapped in the book, Finn embarks on a road trip with Cade to visit their college of choice in Oklahoma. When an unexpected accident happens and the boys become unlikely heroes, they take an eye-opening detour away from everything they thought they had planned—and learn how to write their own destiny.

    Here are authors ranging from Kathy Acker to James Baldwin, Truman Capote to Stanislaw Lem and George Orwell to Shirley Jackson; essays radical and inspiring; poems moving and disturbing; stories surreal and fabulous; taking us from the deep South to modern Japan, New York's underground scene to the farthest reaches of outer space.

    It's the reason she drops everything during the summers on a quest to travel through Europe with her daughter, Katie, before it's too late. Even though her husband can't join them, even though she's nervous about the journey, and even though she's perfectly healthy, she spends three to four weeks per trip jamming Katie's mental photo album with memories. In this heartwarming generational love story, Jennifer reveals how their adventures helped relinquish her fear of dying...for the sake of living.

    Written in the author's wry and masterful voice, these evocative stories are infused with all the peculiar customs, ironies and humor so special to the South.The twelve stories in this collection include "Red Clay," which won an Edgar Allen Poe Award, in which a local girl from Thermopylae becomes a movie star who moves back to her sleepy North Carolina home town and is tried for murdering her unfaithful husband. Her trial causes the town and one man in particular to look back with longing and nostalgia at this exquisite Southern belle who captivated-and sometimes manipulated-every man she met."Fast Love," the recipient of an O. Henry Award, is the story of a man who chases down his future wife after seeing her jog past. As he gets closer to his quarry, he also gains the courage to stand up for what he wants and to champion what he believes.In "Blue Cadillac," Marie, blonde and beautiful, shares dinner and her love of Elvis with a high-tech sales rep on his way home to Memphis. Along the way and on the road, they have exquisite sex and decide to part, Marie in her blue Cadillac. As he rings the bell at his mother's house, the young man discovers that he has been robbed of his wallet and his whole life on cards.Self-contained masterpieces, each of these short stories has the impact and power of a full-length novel.Stella : red clay --Marie : blue Cadillac --Precious : winners and losers --Charmain : white trash noir --Lucy : maniac loose --Flonnie : the rising of the South and Flonnie Rogers --Patty : love and other crimes --Meredith : fast love --Angie : the power --Mona : Miss mona's bank --Betty : a deer on the lawn --Mattie : invitation to the ball

    Voices include those of the impulsive first-time murderer, the depressed pet sitter, the assistant of Patsy Cline, the anxiety-riddled new mother, the aged rock and roller, the girlfriend of your husband—human beings often (incredibly) unaware of the turning points staring them in the face.Crossing time, states, class, and religions, McGraw’s stories are on the edge, causing you to wince even as you laugh. And McGraw will draw you to a deep need to read some sentences aloud—a sweet voice, a shrewd insight, some uneasy charm.

    At first, she focuses frantically on finding a way out, until the harrowing truth of her new existence settles in—the crushing loneliness, the terrifying madness of a captor who believes he is saving her from the end of the world, and the persistent temptation to give up. But nothing prepares Blythe for the burden of raising a child in confinement. Deter­mined to give the boy everything she has lost, she pushes aside the truth about a world he may never see for a myth that just might give mean­ing to their lives below ground. Years later, their lives are ambushed by an event at once promis­ing and devastating. As Blythe’s dream of going home hangs in the balance, she faces the ultimate choice—between survival and freedom.

    . . When New York journalist and recently bereaved mother Charlotte “Charlie” Cates begins to experience vivid dreams about children she’s sure that she’s lost her mind. Yet these are not the nightmares of a grieving parent, she soon realizes. They are messages and warnings that will help Charlie and the children she sees, if only she can make sense of them.After a little boy in a boat appears in Charlie’s dreams asking for her help, Charlie finds herself entangled in a thirty-year-old missing-child case that has never ceased to haunt Louisiana’s prestigious Deveau family. Armed with an invitation to Evangeline, the family’s sprawling estate, Charlie heads south, where new friendships and an unlikely romance bring healing. But as she uncovers long-buried secrets of love, money, betrayal, and murder, the facts begin to implicate those she most wants to trust—and her visions reveal an evil closer than she could’ve imagined.A Southern Gothic mystery debut that combines literary suspense and romance with a mystical twist, The Gates of Evangeline is a story that readers of Gillian Flynn, Kate Atkinson, and Alice Sebold won't be able to put down.