I Thought My Father Was God - Edited and Introduced by Paul Auster

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I Thought My Father Was God

And Other True Tales from NPR's National Story Project

Picador, September 2002
ISBN: 978-0-312-42100-7, ISBN10: 0-312-42100-1,
5 1/2 x 8 1/4 inches, 416 pages, Includes ten black-and-white illustrations,
Trade Paperback, $17.00

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Categories and Subcategories

See All Categories Literature U.S. & Canada: Anthologies U.S. & Canada: Short Stories

When Paul Auster and NPR's Weekend All Things Considered introduced the National Story Project, the response was overwhelming. Not only was the monthly show a critical success, but the volume of submissions was astounding. Letters, emails, faxes poured in on a daily basis—more than 4,000 of them by the time the project celebrated its first birthday.

I Thought My Father Was God gathers 180 of these personal, true-life accounts in a single, powerful volume. They come from people of all ages, backgrounds, and walks of life. Half of the contributors are men; half are women. They live in cities, suburbs, and rural areas, and they come from forty-two different states. Most of the stories are short, vivid bits of narrative, combining the ordinary and the extraordinary, and most describe a single incident in the writer's life. Some are funny, like the story of how a Ku Klux Klan member's beloved dog rushed out into the street during the annual KKK parade and unmasked his owner as the whole town looked on. Some are mysterious, like the story of a woman who watched a white chicken walk purposefully down a street in Portland, Oregon, hop up some porch steps, knock on the door—and calmly enter the house. Many involve the closing of a loop, like the one about the woman who lost her mother's ashes in a burglary and recovered them five years later from the mortuary of a local church.

Hilarious blunders, wrenching coincidences, brushes with death, miraculous encounters, improbable ironies, premonitions, sorrows, pains, dreams—this singular collection encompasses an extraordinary range of settings, time periods, and subjects. A testament to the important role storytelling plays in all our lives, I Thought My Father Was God offers a rare glimpse into the American soul.

Praise

"These stories have their own sly power. They remind us of what real life is . . . They are raw stories, and that's their strength as truth."—San Francisco Chronicle

"Human foibles and frailties, laughter and tears . . . We are all hearing—and telling—stories all the time, especially now, in these days when life itself seems so fragile and precious. But Paul Auster's wonderful efforts, choosing these fine stories, have given us a timely and invaluable reminder of what it means to listen—to really listen—to America talking."—The Times-Picayune (New Orleans)

"Wherever you go on this handsome anthology, the tale is taut, quick and has a payoff, a punch line. I Thought My Father Was God is a huge national family history."—Neil Schmitz, Buffalo News

"Encompasses the comic and the tragic, the absurd and the surreal, the mundane and the ethereal."—Kirkus Reviews

"This is the stuff of life. You can take this message from I Thought My Father Was God . . . Everyone has a story. Also: The art of storytelling is alive and well . . . Of course, there's the obvious question: These stories may work on the radio, but do they translate to print? Yes indeed, and one could argue that they're even more potent read than heard. Reading these essays in private creates a sense of intimacy with 180 people, one at a time. This is a powerful book, one in which strangers share with you their darkest secrets, their happiest memories, their fears, their regrets. To read these essays is to look into hearts, to see life from other viewpoints, to live vicariously."—Steve Greenlee, The Boston Globe

"It is difficult to think of another book published this year, and probably any book to be published next year, that is so simple and so obvious, so excellent in intention and so elegant in its execution, and which displays such wisdom and such knowledge of human life in all its varieties. It is also difficult to think of a book that is so stark a reminder that human experience can be horrid and utterly unbelievable, and which therefore answers so precisely to our current needs and circumstances."—The Guardian (London)

"When novelist Auster was invited to become a regular contributor to National Public Radio, he hesitated because he didn't want to write 'stories on command.' 'Why not solicit stories from listeners?' his wife, Siri Hustvedt, suggested. And so Auster asked for succinctly written true stories, and within a year, he received more than 4,000 submissions. He's read them all, some on the air, and selected 180 of the best and most representative to create a unique and unexpectedly affecting book. Here are clearly written and simply told stories 'by people of all ages and from all walks of life' that Auster, his wonder and respect palpable, organized into 10 intriguing categories: animals, objects, families, slapstick, strangers, war, love, death, dreams, and meditations. These are stop-you-in-your-tracks stories about hair-raising coincidences, miracles, tragedies, redemption, and moments of pure hilarity. These impossible and indelible tales encompass reincarnated pets, lost and found items and loved ones, prophecies, and saved lives. There's something magical and electrifying about the realities these modest tales reveal, the hidden dimensions of human life, an amazing mosaic of mysterious occurrences and connections that are, apparently, as common as dust, as precious as love."—Donna Seaman, Booklist

"All are short, all are true, and they can be sad, hilarious, or both at the same time . . . As this collection ably proves, we all shape experience into stories, and Auster has done a storyteller's job himself of grouping the pieces effectively."—Library Journal (starred review)

"The one- to three-page stories gathered in this astonishing, addictive collection are absolute gems."—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"Like no other book I have read in years, this one restored my belief in Americans and the American experience."—Ploughshares

"Unforgettable testimonials of human resilience. Moving and amusing dispatches from across America."—Us Weekly

About the Author(s)

Paul Auster

Paul Auster is the author of ten novels, including Timbuktu, which was a national bestseller, and most recently The Book of Illusions. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

photo: Lisbeth Salas Soto

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Introduction

ANIMALS
"The Chicken," Linda Elegant
"Rascal," Yale Huffman
"The Yellow Butterfly," Simonette Jackson
"Python," Judith Beth Cohen
"Pooh," Patricia Lambert
"New York Stray," Edith S. Marks
"Pork Chop," Eric Wynn
"B," Suzanne Stroh
"Two Loves," Will Coffey
"Rabbit Story," Barry Foy
"Carolina," Kelly O'Neill
"Andy and the Snake," Ron Fabian
"Blue Skies," Corki Stewart
"Exposure," Michael Oppenheimer
"Vertigo," Janet Schmidt Zupan

OBJECTS
"Star and Chain," Steve Lacheen
"Radio Gypsy," Bill Calm
"A Bicycle Story," Edith Riemer
"Grandmother's China," Kristine Lundquist
"The Bass," Mark Snyder
"Mother's Watch," Raymond Barry
"Case Closed," Jerry Hoke
"The Photo," Beverly Peterson
"MS. Found in an Attic," Marcus Rosenbaum
"Tempo Primo," Lauren Shapiro
"A Lesson Not Learned," Carol Sherman-Jones
"A Family Christmas," Don Graves
"My Rocking Chair," Dick Bain
"The Unicycle," Gordon Lee Stelter
"Moccasins," Fr. Keith Clark
"The Striped Pen," Robert M. Rock
"The Doll," Robert McGee
"The Videotape," Marie Johnson
"The Purse," Barbara Hudin
"A Gift of Gold," John Keith

FAMILIES
"Rainout," Stan Benkoski
"Isolation," Lucy Hayden
"Connections," Miriam Rosenzweig
"The Wednesday Before Christmas," Jack Fear
"How My Father Lost His Job," Fred Muratori
"Danny Kowalski," Charlie Peters
"Revenge" Eric Brotman
"Chris," Edwina Portelle Romero
"Put Your Little Foot," Anna Thorson
"Aunt Myrtle," Laura Braughton Waters
"American Odyssey," Jane Adams
"A Plate of Peas," Rick Beyer
"Wash Guilt," Heather Atwood
"Double Sadness," Martha Russell Hsu
"A Picture of Life," Jeanine Mankins
"Margie," Christine Kravetz
"One Thousand Dollars," I.Z.
"Taking Leave," Joe Miceli
"Act of Memory," Mary Grace Dembeck

SLAPSTICK
"Bi-Coastal," Beth Kivel
"A Felt Fedora," Joan Wilkins Stone
"Man vs. Coat," Mel Singer
"That's Entertainment," Nancy Wilson
"Riding With Andy," Jim Furlong
"Sophisticated Lady," Joan Vanden Heuvel
"My First Day in Priest Clothes," Eugene O'Brien
"Jewish Cowboy," Jennifer Pye
"How to Win Friends and Influence People," Jerry Yellin
"Your Father Has the Hay Fever," Tony Powell
"Lee Ann and Holly Ann," Holly A. Heffelbower
"Why I am Anti-Fur," Freddie Levin
"Airport Story," Randy Welch
"Tears and Flapdoodle," Alice Owens-Johnson
"The Club Car," John Flannelly
"Bronx Cheer," Joe Rizzo
"One Day in Higley," Carl Brooksby

STRANGERS
"Dancing on Seventy-fourth Street," Catherine Austin Alexander
"A Conversation with Bill," John Brawley
"Greyhounding," Beth Twiggar Goff
"A Little Story About New York," Dana T. Payne
"My Mistake," Ludlow Perry
"No Forwarding Address," Josh Dorman
"The New Girl," Marc Mitchell
"The Iceman of Market Street," R.C. Van Kooy
"Me and the Babe," Saul Isler
"Lives of the Poets," Clayton Eshleman
"Land of the Lost," Erica Hagen
"Rainbow," Katie Letcher Lyle
"Rescued by God," Mary Ann Garrett
"My Story," Rachel Watson
"Small World," Paul K. Humiston
"Christmas Morning, 1949," Sylvia Seymour Akin
"Brooklyn Roberts," Adolph Lopez
"$1,380 Per Night, Double Occupancy," Bruce Edward Hall 0
"A Shot in the Light," Lion Goodman
"Snow," Juliana C. Nash

WAR
"The Fastest Man in the Union Army," Michael Kuretich
"Christmas 1862," Grace Sale Wilson
"Mount Grappa," Mary Parsons Burkett
"Savenay," Harold Tapper
"Fifty Years Later," Gisela Cloos Evitt
"He Was the Same Age as My Sister," Mieke C. Malandra
"Betting on Uncle Louie," Jeanne W. Halpern
"The Ten-Goal Player," Paul Ebeltoft
"The Last Hand," Bill Helmantoler
"August 1945," Robert C. North and Dorothy North
"One Autumn Afternoon," Willa Parks Ward
"I Thought My Father Was God," Robert Winnie
"The Celebration," Reginald Thayer
"Christmas 1945," Lloyd Hustvedt
"A Trunk Full of Memories," Morton N. Cohen
"A Walk in the Sun," Donald Zucker
"A Shot in the Dark," David Ayres
"Confessions of a Mouseketeer," Doreen Tracey
"Forever," Maria Barcelona
"Utah, 1975," Steve Hale

LOVE
"What if?," Theodore Lustig
"The Mysteries of Tortellini," Kristina Streeter
"An Involuntary Assistant," C.W. Schmitt
"The Plot," Bev Ford
"Mathematical Aphrodisiac," Alex Galt
"Table for Two," Lori Peikoff
"Suzy's Choosy," Suzanne Druehl
"Top Button," Earl Roberts
"Lace Gloves," Karen Cycon Dermody
"Susan's Greetings," Susan Sprague
"Edith," Bill Froke
"Souls Fly Away," Laura McHugh
"Awaiting Delivery," John Wiley
"The Day Paul and I Flew the Kite," Ann Davis
"A Lesson in Love," Alvin Rosser
"Ballerina," Nicolas Wieder
"The Fortune Cookie," Sharli Land-Polanco

DEATH
"Ashes," Sara Wilson
"Harrisburg," Randee Rosenfeld
"Something to Think About," P. Rohmann
"Good Night," Ellise Rossen
"Charlie the Tree Killer," Frank Young
"Dead Man's Bluff," Joel Einschlag
"My Best Friend," Olga Hardman
"I Didn't Know," Linda Marine
"Cardiac Arrests," Sherwin Waldman
"Grandmother's Funeral," Martha Duncan
"High Street," Judith Englander
"A Failed Execution," David Anderson
"The Ghost," G.A. Gonzalez
"Heart Surgery," Dr. G.
"The Crying Place," Tim Gibson
"Lee," Jodi Walters
"South Dakota," Nancy Peavy
"Connecting with Phil," Tom Sellew
"The Letter," Brian F. McGee
"Dress Rehearsal," Ellen Powell
"The Anonymous Deciding Factor," Hollie Caldwell Campanella

DREAMS
"4:05 A.M.," Matthew Menary
"In the Middle of the Night," Steve Harper
"Blood," James Sharpsteen
"The Interpretation of Dreams," V. Ferguson-Stewart
"Half-Ball," Jack Edmonston
"Friday Night," Steve Hodgman
"Farrell," Stew Schneider
"Jill," Kara Husson
"D-Day," Richard R. Rosman
"The Wall," Vicky Johnson
"Heaven," Grace Fichtelberg
"My Father's Dream," Mary McCallum
"Parallel Lives," Timothy Ackerman
"Anna May," Jeff Raper
"Long Time Gone," Lynn Duvall

MEDITATIONS
"Sewing Lessons," Donna M. Bronner
"Sunday Drive," Bob Ayers
"Mayonnaise Sandwiches," Thomas Corrado
"Seaside," Tanya Collins
"After a Long Winter," Eileen O'Hara
"Martini With a Twist," Dede Ryan
"Nowhere," John Howze
"Where in the World is Era Rose Rodosta?," Carolyn Brasher
"Peter," Mark Gover
"At Sixes and Sevens," Sandra Waller
"Reflections on a Hubcap," Roger Brinkerhoff
"Homeless in Prescott, Arizona," B.C.
"Being There," Tim Clancy
"An Average Sadness," Ameni Rozsa

I Thought My Father Was God

Praise

About the Author(s)

Table of Contents