In the short story collection Beautiful Blemish, Sampsell dives deep into the human psyche to reveal the layers of secret desire, loneliness and hope buried in our hearts. The stories in Beautiful Blemish display an American voice that mixes humor, experimentation, and unflinching pathos to full effect.

    The birthplace and graveyard of American myths and dreams, the city harbours a group of people trapped between the beauty of their surroundings and their own moral impoverishment. This novel is a chronicle of their voices.

    Burroughs stated that the chapters are intended to be read in any order. The reader follows the narration of junkie William Lee, who takes on various aliases, from the U.S. to Mexico, eventually to Tangier and the dreamlike Interzone.The vignettes are drawn from Burroughs' own experiences in these places and his addiction to drugs (heroin, morphine, and while in Tangier, majoun [a strong hashish confection] as well as a German opioid, brand name Eukodol, of which he wrote frequently).[source wiki}

    Rendered in the American vernacular with vivid imagery and a wry, dark sense of humor, these thwarted and sometimes violent lives jump off the page at the reader with inexorable force. A father pumps his son full of steroids so he can vicariously relive his days as a perpetual runner-up body builder. A psychotic rural recluse comes upon two siblings committing incest and feels compelled to take action. Donald Ray Pollock presents his characters and the sordid goings-on with a stern intelligence, a bracing absence of value judgments, and a refreshingly dark sense of bottom-dog humor.With an artistic instinct honed on the works of Flannery O' Connor and Harry Crews, Pollock offers a powerful work of fiction in the classic American vein. Knockemstiff is a genuine entry into the literature of place.

    From the first page of each of the edgy and unrelentingly intense stories in this debut collection, the teenaged characters are headed for big trouble. The adult world has mostly failed them, and they find themselves entering into highly charged situations where they make their own rules, with misguided understanding of the consequences. The stories burn hot and fast, providing searing insights into their world of sex, drugs, drinking, violence, and accidental grace, played out in small, tough towns. Written with raw directness and understanding that makes these nine stories impossible to forget, The History of Vegas announces an exciting, fresh talent with the impact of Mary Gaitskill, Mary Karr, and Jayne Anne Phillips.

    With a different die-cut on every page, Tree of Codes explores previously unchartered literary territory. Initially deemed impossible to make, the book is a first — as much a sculptural object as it is a work of masterful storytelling. Tree of Codes is the story of an enormous last day of life — as one character's life is chased to extinction, Foer multi-layers the story with immense, anxious, at times disorientating imagery, crossing both a sense of time and place, making the story of one person’s last day everyone’s story. Inspired to exhume a new story from an existing text, Jonathan Safran Foer has taken his "favorite" book, The Street of Crocodiles by Polish-Jewish writer Bruno Schulz, and used it as a canvas, cutting into and out of the pages, to arrive at an original new story told in Jonathan Safran Foer's own acclaimed voice.

    Yet there are moments of exquisite tenderness in these troubled lives. Georgette, the transvestite who falls in love with a callous hoodlum; Tralala, the conniving prostitute who plumbs the depths of sexual degradation; and Harry, the strike leader who hides his true desires behind a boorish masculinity, are unforgettable creations. Last Exit to Brooklyn was banned by British courts in 1967, a decision that was reversed the following year with the help of a number of writers and critics including Anthony Burgess and Frank Kermode.Hubert Selby, Jr. (1928-2004) was born in Brooklyn, New York. At the age of 15, he dropped out of school and went to sea with the merchant marines. While at sea he was diagnosed with lung disease. With no other way to make a living, he decided to try writing: 'I knew the alphabet. Maybe I could be a writer.' In 1964 he completed his first book, Last Exit to Brooklyn, which has since become a cult classic. In 1966, it was the subject of an obscenity trial in the UK. His other books include The Room, The Demon, Requiem for a Dream, The Willow Tree and Waiting Period. In 2000, Requiem for a Dream was adapted into a film starring Jared Leto and Ellen Burstyn, and directed by Darren Aronofsky.'Last Exit to Brooklyn will explode like a rusty hellish bombshell over America, and still be eagerly read in 100 years'Allen Ginsberg'An urgent tickertape from hell'Spectator

    nerds, sickly little girls - each coping with the limits of her life by making up an elaborate and flattering lie about herself, a fantastic tale in which she escapes her helpless situation. Whether describing a pilgrimage to Elvis Presley?s bathroom by two young punks, a rape in a farmhouse, or a mother-daughter relationship revolving around Prozac and a lifetime of thearpy, Pagan Kennedy expertly strips away the secrets and pretentions of American life.

    A must for this counterculture idol's legion of fans.

    She has been called “an American virtuoso of the short story form” (Salon) and “one of the quiet giants . . . of American fiction” (Los Angeles Times Book Review). Now, for the first time, Davis’s short stories will be collected in one volume, from the groundbreaking Break It Down (1986) to the 2007 National Book Award nominee Varieties of Disturbance. The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis is an event in American letters.

    DIVORCER is a collection of seven harrowing and hyperprecise short stories about ruinous relationships and their aftershocks.

    Brief dreamlike sketches deal with a safari in the suburbs, a mother struck by lightning, a cow wearing lingerie, and a visit from dead parents.

    In spare, elegant prose, Freed delivers surprise after surprise as she shakes the truth from life. Whether it's her portrayal of a mother mired in senile dementia in "Ma," a young girl experiencing her first sexual encounter with an itinerant knife-sharpener in "Under the House," or a young woman incapable of loving conventionally in "An Error of Desire," Freed portrays the absurdity, the delusions, the dramas, and the dignity of her characters' lives. These masterful stories reinforce her reputation as one of our most fearless and sophisticated explorers of sexual and filial love.

    Tom Reasons thought that a money bet was enough for him. Then he put his career, his love, even his life on the line. Tom is just a year out of school, a paralegal in a Wall Street firm, and he's already asking himself, "Is this all there is?" He's not finding any thrills on the job, and off it he sees his friends sliding into marriages and careers. He also finds himself spending way too much time thinking about his ex-girlfriend, Lisa. Tom's pleasures are few and simple - chasing good times in bars with his old gang from school, leading his dart team. But his real escape is gambling. Every Friday night he bets his paycheck on a single game. If he wins, he lives the high life - checking out bands, standing his friends drinks, going after girls. If he loses, it's ramen noodles and TV until his next check. Win or lose, though, it's all worth it to Tom, because the thrill of risking it all is what reminds him he's alive. Tom's life works surprisingly well - until he crosses Joe Duggan. Duggan is the tough Irish captain of the meanest dart team in the league, an outfit from Hell's Kitchen known as the Hellions. After Tom's team has the nerve to beat the Hellions for the league championship, Duggan wants a rematch - this time for a little money. When a little money becomes a lot, Tom's scramble through the underworld of New York to raise the money brings him, his friends, and Lisa into dangerous territory. When it all comes down to one throw of a dart, with everything on the line, Tom discovers what he's really wanted, really needed, all along.

    Whatever their differences in mood or effect, they are both very much concerned with Seymour Glass, who is the main character in my still-uncompleted series about the Glass family. It struck me that they had better be collected together, if not deliberately paired off, in something of a hurry, if I mean them to avoid unduly or undesirably close contact with new material in the series. There is only my word for it, granted, but I have several new Glass stories coming along ? waxing, dilating ? each in its own way, but I suspect the less said about them, in mixed company, the better. Oddly, the joys and satisfactions of working on the Glass family peculiarly increase and deepen for me with the years. I can't say why, though. Not, at least, outside the casino proper of my fiction.