From Powells.com
Hot new releases and under-the-radar gems for adults and kids.
Staff Pick
Chuck Klosterman’s latest book is an ’80s cartoon-themed lunchbox full of microdoses of unreality. Each story lays silly putty down on a conventional thought or woke ideal and stretches the afterimage. It’s like Thirty Two Short Films About What If We’re Wrong?. Recommended By Keith M., Powells.com
Synopses & Reviews
Microdoses of the straight dope, stories so true they had to be wrapped in fiction for our own protection, from the best-selling author of But What if We're Wrong?
A man flying first class discovers a puma in the lavatory. A new coach of a small-town Oklahoma high school football team installs an offense comprised of only one, very special, play. A man explains to the police why he told the employee of his local bodega that his colleague looked like the lead singer of Depeche Mode, a statement that may or may not have led in some way to a violent crime. A college professor discusses with his friend his difficulties with the new generation of students. An obscure power pop band wrestles with its new-found fame when its song "Blizzard of Summer" becomes an anthem for white supremacists. A couple considers getting a medical procedure that will transfer the pain of childbirth from the woman to her husband. A woman interviews a hit man about killing her husband but is shocked by the method he proposes. A man is recruited to join a secret government research team investigating why coin flips are no longer exactly 50/50. A man sees a whale struck by lightning, and knows that everything about his life has to change. A lawyer grapples with the unintended side effects of a veterinarian's rabies vaccination.
Fair warning: Raised in Captivity does not slot into a smooth preexisting groove. If Saul Steinberg and Italo Calvino had adopted a child from a Romanian orphanage and raised him on Gary Larsen and Thomas Bernhard, he would still be nothing like Chuck Klosterman. They might be good company, though. Funny, wise and weird in equal measure, Raised in Captivity bids fair to be one of the most original and exciting story collections in recent memory, a fever graph of our deepest unvoiced hopes, fears and preoccupations. Ceaselessly inventive, hostile to corniness in all its forms, and mean only to the things that really deserve it, it marks a cosmic leap forward for one of our most consistently interesting writers.
Review
"Acidly funny. . . . Armed with everything from existential crises to a robot dinosaur, there's really something for everyone in this crisp collection of imaginative snippets. A colorful, somewhat wicked collection of stories that are touching as often as they are laugh-out-loud funny." Kirkus Reviews
Review
"[A] delightful grab-bag of ideas, characters, and fantastical plots, all in prose that jumps off the page. . . . [T]hese vignettes, often with Twilight Zone- or Black Mirror-like premises, are both profoundly weird and weirdly profound. . . . [RAISED IN CAPTIVITY] is moving, funny, and ceaselessly entertaining." Booklist
Review
"A multitude of clever scenarios. . . . In these 34 stories, most featuring a hilarious denouement, [Klosterman] takes on racism, diets, cults, white privilege, and life with Trump as president. . . . No matter the topic, Klosterman's gimlet eye and trenchant prose bedazzle." Publishers Weekly
About the Author
Chuck Klosterman is the bestselling author of eight nonfiction books (including Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs; I Wear the Black Hat; But What If We're Wrong?; and Killing Yourself to Live) and two novels (Downtown Owl and The Visible Man). He has written for The New York Times, The Washington Post, GQ, Esquire, Spin, The Guardian, The Believer, Billboard, The A.V. Club, and ESPN. Klosterman served as the Ethicist for The New York Times Magazine for three years, appeared as himself in the LCD Soundsystem documentary Shut Up and Play the Hits, and was an original founder of the website Grantland with Bill Simmons.