Synopses & Reviews
He must have fallen in and out of sleep, because he'd sit up in bed in the dark and believe the front door had flown open and that his father's car waited idling in the drive.
This first novel by an acclaimed author evokes the raw emotional undercurrents of a family in crisis. Set in an old New England mill town in 1979, The Wasp Eater is the story of a nine-year-old boy's dream of reuniting his estranged parents and is a haunting tale of characters caught in the crossfire of their desires and fears.
After learning of her husband's infidelity, Daniel's mother throws him and his things out of the house. But, a stubborn and impulsive man, he returns almost nightly to his son's window. Through the moonlit screen, father and son secretly plot ways to make the family whole again. Daniel's chosen plan goes horribly wrong, and he finds himself accompanying his father on one final betrayal of everything the boy knows and loves.
This debut author uncovers the depths of emotion in regular lives and the surprising human capacity for resilience after heartbreak.
Review
"I was entranced....I put the book down a few moments, looked around, dazed, at where I had been...and I cried." Bret Lott, author of A Song I Knew by Heart and Jewel
Review
"A beautifully understated, delicately crafted debut." Booklist
Review
"What's so remarkable here is the understatedness, the quietly intense writing carefully containing more emotion than many louder novels have to show....[B]ittersweet, small-scale yet deeply affecting..." Library Journal (Starred Review)
Synopsis
Set in an old New England mill town in 1979, The Wasp Eater is the story of a nine-year-old boy's dream of reuniting his estranged parents, and is a haunting tale of characters caught in the crossfire of their desires and fears. The first novel by an author already featured in The Best American Short Stories and National Public Radio's This American Life, The Wasp Eater charts the raw emotional undercurrents of a family in crisis.
Synopsis
The stories in William Lychacks dazzling new collection, The Architect of Flowers, explore the dear and inevitable distance between people in loving relationships and find hope in dark situations. With tiny, precise details, Lychack observes the overlooked moments of everyday life—the small failings between parents and children, the long-held secrets in married life.
A small-town policeman brings himself to shoot a familys injured dog; an old woman secretly trains a crow to steal for her; a hybridizers wife discovers the perfect lie to bring her family magically together again. Lychacks characters yearn to re-enchant the world, to turn the ordinary and profane into the sacred and beautiful again, to make beauty serve as an antidote to grief. From ghostwriter to ghost runners to ghosts in a chapel, these stories are extraordinary portraits of lifes tender humiliations as well as its sharp, rude jolts.
Synopsis
"The Wasp Eater has an uncanny precision about love and forgiveness . . . It is one of the best narratives I have ever read about those who are unforgiven, and the effect of this refusal on a child." -- Charles Baxter
Deeply felt and wholly original, William Lychack's heart-rending debut charts a ten-year-old boy's quest to reunite his estranged parents. After learning of her husband's infidelity, Daniel's mother throws the man and his things out of the house. Stubborn and impulsive, Daniel's father is forbidden to visit, but he returns frequently to his son's window at night, furtively offering money, apologies, advice, and hope. Caught between his mother's pain and his father's guilt, Daniel attempts an extraordinary act in a desperate bid to repair his family.
Graceful and magnetic, this impressive first novel insightfully charts the raw emotional undercurrents of a broken family through characters whose human foibles are artfully drawn.
"This spare, meticulous novel opens out like a poem, its deceptively casual images bearing a universe of weight." -- New York Times Book Review
"Poignant . . . Lychack finds new ways to describe feelings too achingly familiar to anyone whose parents ever delivered similar news." -- San Diego Union-Tribune
"The simplicity and clarity of Lychack's writing are effective in their precise portrayal of a child's mind . . . vivid." -- People
William Lychack's stories have appeared in The Best American Short Stories, Ploughshares, Triquarterly, and on public radio's This American Life. The Wasp Eater is his first book.
Synopsis
A collection of fables and short stories.
About the Author
William Lychack received his MFA from the University of Michigan. Portions of this novel have appeared in Quarterly West, The Sun, TriQuarterly, and Witness. He has published children's books and corporate histories, and has worked as a speechwriter, ghostwriter, carpenter, bartender, janitor, and Mr. Softee ice cream man. He currently works as a judo instructor in New York City.
Table of Contents
CONTENTS
Stolpestad 1
Chickens 13
The Ghostwriter 31
The Architect of Flowers 43
Griswald 69
Thin End of the Wedge 75
Hawkins 93
Calvary 99
Love Is a Temper 105
Like a Demon 111
The Old Woman and Her Thief 119
A Stand of Fables 143
To the Farm 151