Best worst American : stories / by Juan Martinez.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Martinez, Juan, 1974- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Americans--Fiction.

Americans.

National characteristics, American--Fiction.

National characteristics, American.

Domestic fiction.

United States--Social life and customs--20th century--Fiction.

United States.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (121 pages)

Place of Publication:

Easthampton, Massachusetts : Small Beer Press, 2017.

Summary:

"Praise for Juan Martinez: "A little out of the ordinary.... He takes this very unnatural environment and changes it into a landscape."-Hannah Tinti "I loved it."- Etgar Keret These are the best Americans, the worst Americans. In these stories (these cities, these people) there are labyrinths, rivers, wildernesses. Voices sound slightly different than ex-pected. There's humor, but it's going to hurt. In "On Paradise," a petshop manager flies with his cat to Las Vegas to meet his long-lost mother and grandmother, only to find that the women look exactly like they did forty years before. In "The Spooky Japanese Girl is There For You," the spooky Japanese girl (a ghost) is there for you, then she is not. These refreshing and invigorating stories of displacement, exile, and identity, of men who find themselves confused by the pres-ence or absence of extraordinary women, jump up, demand to be read, and send the reader back to the earth changed: reminded from these short stories how big the world is. Juan Martinez was born in Bucaramanga, Colombia, and has lived in Orlando, Florida, and Las Vegas, Nevada. He now lives in Chicago with his wife, the writer Sarah Kokernot, and their son and two cats. He's an assistant professor at Northwestern University. His work and has appeared in Glimmer Train, McSweeney's, Ecotone, Huizache, TriQuarterly, Conjunctions, the Cossack Review, the Santa Monica Review, National Public Radio's Selected Shorts, Norton's Sudden Fiction Latino, and elsewhere"-- Provided by publisher.

"These are the best Americans, the worst Americans. In these stories (these cities, these people) there are labyrinths, rivers, wildernesses. Voices sound slightly different than expected. There's humor, but it's going to hurt"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Roadblock

Strangers on Vacation: Snapshots

Machulán In L.A.

On Paradise

Domokun in Fremont

The Women Who Talk To Themselves

Customer Service at the Karaoke Don Quixote

Your Significant Other's Kitten Poster

Well Tended

Souvenirs from Ganymede

The Coca-Cola Executive in the Zapatoca Outhouse

Correspondences between the Lower World and Old Men in Pinstripe Suits

The Lead Singer Is Distracting Me

Errands

Liner Notes for Renegade, the Opening Sequence

Hobbledehoydom

My Sister's Knees

The Spooky Japanese Girl Is There For You

Big Wheel, Boiling Hot

After the End of the World: A Capsule Review

Debtor

Forsaken, the Crew Awaited News from the People Below

Northern

Best Worst American.

Notes:

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

1-61873-125-4