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You Are Not a Stranger Here
Adam Haslett.
Doubleday: 2002
(hardcover).
ISBN: 0385509529.
237 pages.
Guide not available
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"The mental health establishment can go screw itself on a barren hilltop in the rain before I touch their snake oil or listen to the visionless chatter of men half my age. I have shot Germans in the fields of Normandy, filed twenty-six patents, married three women, survived them all, and am currently the subject of an investigation by the IRS, which has about as much chance of collecting from me as Shylock did of getting his pound of flesh. Bureaucracies have trouble thinking clearly. I, on the other hand, am perfectly lucid."
That's from the first paragraph of the first story of Adam Haslett's mind-blowing new short story collection. The story is "Notes to my Biographer," and the speaker is a manic-depressive septuagenarian who is determined that no one--especially not the son who still loves him--shall thwart his manifest destiny as one of America's greatest inventive geniuses.
From the roller-coaster ride of this first story, Haslett's collection picks up speed and delivers knockout punch after knockout punch, chronicling the bizarre attempts of the desperately alienated and terribly lonely to find some way to connect to their fellow human beings. This is a harsh but absolutely amazing, ultimately touching book, a must-read for anyone who wants to meet the future of American letters. Like nothing you have read before.
We should add that it's a bit surprising, and greatly to their credit, that The Today Show selected this collection for their book club. This is definitely not what you might think of as the usual choice for a morning news show book club--the third story is about a gay orphan teen who's persuading a bully in his class to beat him as a means of making an intimate connection. After finishing this story, we had a huge new respect for The Today Show and for the brains behind their book club.
If you're interested in checking out the transcript of the show and a short video of Haslett discussing his book, click here.
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