Music Through the Floor

Includes a new story, "Body Language"!

Now in paperback, Eric Puchner's celebrated debut collection, a finalist for the New York Public Library's Young Lions Fiction Award, established him as one of our most brilliant and promising new literary voices.

Writing from an impressive range of perspectives -- men and women, children and adults, immigrants and tourists -- Puchner deftly exposes the dark, tender undersides of his characters with arresting beauty and precision. Here are people fumbling for identity in a dehumanizing world, captured in moments that are hilarious, shocking, and transcendent, sometimes all at once. Unfailingly true, surprisingly moving, and impossible to forget, these stories make up an extraordinary and strikingly original collection.

"Riveting...In this melodious collection, Puchner proves to be uncannily in tune with the heartbreak and absurdity of domestic life."

-- Los Angeles Times

"An awe-inspiring debut that introduces readers to Puchner's great strength: the ability to chronicle the oddest of behaviors with a humane, unsparing voice."

-- Entertainment Weekly

"Stories with style, heft, and real endings...Puchner puts the story back in short story."

-- San Francisco Chronicle Book Review

"This is the most auspicious debut of a short story collection that I have encountered in years....If there is any justice left in the world, this book will be widely read and celebrated."

-- Charles Baxter, author of The Feast of Love and Saul and Patsy

"Music Through the Floor is a compendium of everything we hope for from current fiction, delivered with a singular wit, energy, and ecstasy unique to Puchner's prose. The stories are infectious and irresistible, as if he's channeling Tristram Shandy, Dostoevsky, and South Park all at once."

-- ZZ PACKER, author of Drinking Coffee Elsewhere

Eric Puchner is an assistant professor of literature at Claremont McKenna College.  He has received a Pushcart Prize and a National Endowment for the Arts grant.  His short story collection, Music Through the Floor, was a finalist for the NY Public Library’s Young Lions Award.  He lives in Los Angeles with his wife, novelist Katharine Noel, and their children.

Contents

Children of God

Essay #3: Leda and the Swan

Child's Play

Diablo

Neon Tetra

Legends

A Fear of Invisible Tribes

Animals Here Below

Mission