Had a Good Time: Stories from American Postcards

For many years Pulitzer Prize-winning author Robert Olen Butler has collected picture postcards from the early twentieth century — not so much for the pictures on the fronts but for the messages written on the backs, little bits of the captured souls of people long since passed away. Using these brief messages of real people from another age, Butler creates fully imagined stories that speak to the universal human condition. In "Up by Heart," a Tennessee miner is called upon to become a preacher, and then asked to complete an altogether more sinister task. In "The Ironworkers' Hayride," a young man named Milton embarks on a romantic adventure with a girl with a wooden leg. From the deeply moving "Carl and I," where a young wife writes a postcard in reply to a card from her husband who is dying of tuberculosis, to the eerily familiar "The One in White," where a newspaper reporter covers an incident of American military adventurism in a foreign land, these are intimate and fascinating glimpses into the lives of ordinary people in an extraordinary age.

"A wonderfully varied third collection from Pulitzer-winning Butler....Assured, accomplished, and another intriguing change of pace from an adventurous writer who refuses to be pigeonholed." Kirkus Reviews (Starred Review)

"Fifteen gloriously imaginative and utterly hypnotizing short stories....Scintillating, soulful, and surprising." Booklist

"I'll never stop believing it: Robert Olen Butler is the best living American writer, period....[The] characters and situations absolutely sing in your mind as you read." Jeff Guinn, Fort Worth Morning Star

"[Butler] chose fifteen postcards, breathed lives into the correspondents, and the result is a wonderful collection of stories that depicts American life after the turn of the twentieth century from a wide variety of perspectives." Jessica Murphy, Atlantic Monthly

"All of these stories are told in the first person, but Butler rarely settles for impressing us with his range of vocal effects....The author more than satisfies us with the book’s tonal variety and unexpected linkages." Thomas Mallon, Washington Post

"There is a great deal to admire in this collection—crisp writing, marvelous imaging, the discussion of large, existential questions that are as central to life now as they were a hundred years ago." Roland Merullo, Boston Globe

"All of the stories are short and such good company that we read them in an afternoon. What’s more, we had the feeling that Butler enjoyed them almost as much as we did." Arizona Republic

"Butler extends his reach once again....He crafts strong individual voices whose cadences and rhythms reflect the world these characters live in." Wendy Smith, Newsday

"[Butler] uses his findings to inspire mesmerizing excursions into loss and affirmation. From their smudged, often enigmatic messages...evolve tales that capture the rugged promise of the brand-new 20th century." Connie Ogle, Tampa Tribune

"Butler’s...literary inspiration, and the strength and uniqueness of his narrative voice makes these tales as equally pleasurable and potentially award-winning as [his] first." Jennie A. Camp, Rocky Mountain News

"Butler remains, unfortunately, a precious literary secret.... Had a Good Time is a legacy of supreme imagination, surely inimitable." Larry Swindell, Fort Worth Star-Telegram

"Butler’s imaginative re-animation of anonymous lives from the past is both entertaining and informative, an alternate history of forgotten souls." Regis Behe, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

"Butler throws his literary voice back in time to the early part of the American century in order to embody some of the great themes of the era. A nostalgic look backward, Had a Good Time has a little something for all tastes." Chris Watson, Santa Cruz Sentinel

"[Had a Good Time] makes for a juicy feast, full of memorable stories you will want to read slowly, not in bunches, but chewing them over one by one, discussing them with friends.” Alice Evans, The Oregonian

"Picture postcards offer an unusually fertile vantage point from which to examine the traditions and complications of American life. In these terrific new stories, he uses his findings to inspire mesmerizing excursions into loss and affirmation." Denver Post/Rocky Mountain News

"Butler is brilliant at shifting not only the fictional voices from story to story, but also each characters’ disposition, attitudes and shapes of thought, fooling you into believing each one." Christian Martin, Bellingham Weekly (WA)

"Whether poignant or fiercely funny, Butler’s stories faithfully follow the lead of the long-dead, always taking great care not to dispel the mood created by the postcard’s author." Andrea Hoag, Star Tribune

In his dazzling new book of stories, Butler explores America by finding artistic inspiration in an unlikely and fascinating place — the backs of postcards from the early 20th century.

Robert Olen Butler is the author of ten novels and three collections of stories. In addition to a Pulitzer Prize in 1993 and a National Magazine Award in 2001 (both for fiction), he has received a Guggenheim Fellowship in fiction and an NEA grant, as well as the Richard and Hinda Rosenthal Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He teaches creative writing at Florida State University.