Samuel Johnson Is Indignant

ALA Notable Book of the Year
A Village Voice Favorite Book of the Year

From one of our most imaginative and inventive writers comes a crystalline collection of perfectly modulated, sometimes harrowing, and often hilarious investigations into the multifaceted ways in which human beings perceive one another and themselves. A couple suspects their friends think them boring: a woman resolves to see herself as nothing but then concludes she's set too high a goal; and a funeral home receives a letter rebuking it for linguistic errors. Lydia Davis once again proves to be, in the words of the Los Angeles Times, "one of the quiet giants in the world of American fiction."

Praise

"Davis might be thought of as an erudite stand-up comedian, one who works, philosophers' conferences instead of nightclubs . . . Samuel Johnson Is indignant is Montaigne in a minimalist mood."—The New York Times Book Review

"Davis should be counted among the true originals of contemporary American short fiction."—San Francisco Chronicle

"Davis deploys her gift for verbal bemusement, annoyance, and high anxiety . . . [and] converts her characters' complex ruminations into narratives full of insight and pleasure."—The Village Voice

"In deadpan prose, Davis turns philosophical snippets into fiction, with moving results . . . Davis's stories are as clear as children's books and somehow inevitable, as if she has written what we were all on the verge of thinking ourselves."—Time

"Her stories are intellectual and playful, and rigorous as brainteasers."—Bookforum

About the Author(s)

Lydia Davis

Lydia Davis is the author of the story collections Almost No Memory and Break it Down, and the novel The End of the Story. She has received a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Lannan Foundation Award, the Wallace/Reader's Digest Award and a Chevalier from the French government.

photo: David Ignaszewski

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