Thirteen hilarious, moving, and beautifully brutal stories by David
Gordon, the award-winning author of Mystery Girl and The Serialist.
In these funny, surprising, and touching stories, Gordon gets at the big
stuff--art and religion, literature and madness, the supernatural, and
the dark fringes of sexuality--in his own unique style, described by
novelist Rivka Galchen as "Dashiell Hammett divided by Don DeLillo, to
the power of Dostoyevsky--yet still pure David Gordon."
Gordon's creations include ex-gangsters and terrifying writing coaches,
Internet girlfriends and bogus memoirists, Chinatown ghosts, and
vampires of Queens. "The Amateur" features a cafe encounter with a
terrible artist who carries a mind-blowing secret. In the long,
beautifully brutal title story, a man numbed by life finds himself
flirting with and mourning lost souls in the purgatory of sex chatrooms.
The result is both unflinching and hilarious, heartbreaking and
life-affirming.