Book details

The Emerald Light in the Air

Stories

Author: Donald Antrim

The Emerald Light in the Air

The Emerald Light in the Air

$11.99

About This Book

Nothing is simple for the men and women in Donald Antrim's stories. As they do the things we all do—bum a cigarette at a party, stroll with a girlfriend down Madison Avenue, take a kid to the zoo—they're...

Page Count
176
On Sale
09/02/2014

Book Details

Nothing is simple for the men and women in Donald Antrim's stories. As they do the things we all do—bum a cigarette at a party, stroll with a girlfriend down Madison Avenue, take a kid to the zoo—they're confronted with their own uncooperative selves. These artists, writers, lawyers, teachers, and actors make fools of themselves, spiral out of control, have delusions of grandeur, despair, and find it hard to imagine a future. They talk, they listen, they hope, they dream. They look for communion in a city, both beautiful and menacing, which can promise so much and yield so little. But they are hungry for life. They want to love and be loved.
These stories, all published in The New Yorker over the last fifteen years, make it clear that Antrim is one of America's most important writers. His work has been praised by his significant contemporaries, including Jonathan Franzen, Thomas Pynchon, Jeffrey Eugenides, and George Saunders, who described The Verificationist as "one of the most pleasure-giving, funny, perverse, complicated, addictive novels of the last twenty years." And here is Antrim's best book yet: the story collection that reveals him as a master of the form.

Imprint Publisher

Farrar, Straus and Giroux

ISBN

9780374712402

In The News

“In the last few years one of my favorite novelists, Donald Antrim, has devoted himself to short stories--not as finger exercises, but with a combined intensity, delicacy, and feeling for tradition that set him apart from any writer of his generation . . . What is it about Antrim? He writes as if prose were his native language: his sentences have the matter-of-fact pathos and absurdity of dreams . . . His themes are the Chekhovian classics--ambivalence toward the life at hand; yearning for the life that might have been--and he evokes unhappy love with a sensuousness and a subtle, plausible magic that recall Cheever at his best.” —Lorin Stein, The Paris Review Daily

“No one writes more eloquently about the male crack-up and the depths of loneliness than Donald Antrim; the stories in The Emerald Light in the Air, hopscotching between the surreal and ordinary, comic and heartbreaking, are dazzling.” —Vanity Fair

The Emerald Light in the Air is a collection of short stories by Donald Antrim, one of the sharpest, funniest, darkest writers of his generation. Mr. Antrim produces so little that every book is an event, and, like everything else he has done, this one is a careful treasure.” —Bill Buford, The Wall Street Journal

“These Antrim stories--brilliant, antic, emotional--are tremendously funny and moving. I read them with that dreaful exhilaration that only the best writers can elicit.” —Joseph O'Neill, Publishers Weekly, "PW's Top Authors Pick Their Favorite Books of 2014"

“[The Emerald Light in the Air] is a landmark, almost cartographic document, showing a profound recalibration of style, voice, and form . . . these stories indicate a new direction for Donald Antrim. And we should always say yes to genius, yes to that emerald light in the air.” —Lydia Kiesling, The Millions

“Stunning.” —Christian Lorentzen, London Review of Books

“Donald Antrim's stories are often lovely a nd drastic in the same breath, which becomes electrifying for the reader.” —Richard Ford

“Exhilarating . . . [The Emerald Light in the Air] takes us in unexpected directions, moving from the outlandish to the intimate with the seamlessness of a single breath.” —David L. Ulin, The Los Angeles Times

“Antrim's stories take us so deeply into the hearts and minds of his characters that we have no choice but to care about them.” —Philadelphia Inquirer

“The most underrated quality in fiction nowadays is intelligence; the most overrated, imagination. Donald Antrim possesses both--but his intelligence is what makes you sit up straighter when you begin his new collection, The Emerald Light in the Air. Very quickly you realize you are reading something different from the mass of competent, earnest and depressingly dull short stories that are as commonplace now as ever.” —Adelle Waldman, The New York Times Book Review

“The seven gripping stories in Antrim's long-awaited debut collection showcase the author's ability to employ surreal and traditional modes to describe the emotional demons plaguing his characters . . . Antrim is well attuned to the idiosyncrasies that define the rhythm of a relationship, and is particularly adept at giving shape to the complications that inevitably arise between lovers. A collection of great depth to be read, reread, and above all, relished.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Couples unravel and anxieties are revealed in this batch of urbane, wry and interior stories enlivened by Antrim's talent for gamemanship with words . . . Antrim is attuned to the way couples struggle to make themselves heard or obscure their true feelings. A deceptively spiky set of meditations on romantic failure.” —Kirkus

“In polished prose that's analytical, sharp and concise, Antrim reveals the weaknesses in these fragile characters, burdened with even the simplest decisions they're unable to make.” —Shelf Awareness

“Engaging . . . Master storyteller Antrim has an original voice and an acute sensitivity to the spectrum of human emotion. These are stories the reviewer won't soon forget.” —Sue Russell, Library Journal

“Antrim exhibits an elastic command of voice and a precise emotional awareness.” —Rachel Arons and Andrea Denhoed, The New Yorker

“Antrim is a master of voice and characterization.” —Michael Autrey, Booklist

About the Creators

The Emerald Light in the Air

The Emerald Light in the Air

$11.99