Sarabande Books

Sarabande Books

English

Winner of the 2016 Kentucky Literary AwardFinalist for Foreword Reviews' INDIEFAB Book of the Year Award"Twenty-two stories ranging in length from a few paragraphs to 20 or so pages and in style from the freakishly absurd to the heartbreakingly realistic.Griner excels in his longer stories, one of which—"On Board the SS Irresponsible"—borders on being a masterpiece. . . . Griner's stories shine a glaring light on the complexities of human personality and family relationships.”—Kirkus, Starred Review"Griner approaches everyday tragedies by building elaborate machines and shaky structures in the hope of creating a facsimile of life that might somehow become real....A pleasure." —The New York Times"In his second story collection, Griner overlays tales of family, artistry, and parent-child relationships with elements of the surreal, in order to create, in the words of one character, 'an undercurrent of mournfulness' . . . . A line from 'Immanent in the Last Sheaf,' another masterly short piece, could serve as the collection’s mission statement: 'It was better not to guess,' the protagonist tell us, 'than to guess incorrectly.'"—Publishers Weekly"Griner's stories...reveal the miraculous and the terrifying.... Like the ever-shifting landscapes encountered by Griner's characters, these stories channel unpredictability in a variety of ways, memorably showcasing the literal and figurative dangers around us."—Minneapolis Star Tribune"This eclectic yet wonderfully coherent collection proves once again Griner’s acute grasp of the complex and slippery emotions leading from gladness to mourning…. [T]he one constant in Griner’s stories is that the pain of loss is inevitable and unfathomably difficult to deal with. This is not to say that the stories, with their deadpan narrators, impossible ethical dilemmas, and often bizarre and dream-like internal laws, do not also manage to be hysterically funny. Griner understands that, at their core, emotions are physiological noise, and he expertly evokes situations in which the reader is invited to indulge in almost medical self-observation before responding to the stories’ absurdities and profundities with the same narrow embodied repertoire—laughter, sadness, confusion—as Griner’s protagonists and narrators."—The Carolina Quarterly“Paul Griner finds surprising and inventive ways to write about a wide range of sometimes uncomfortable—but always interesting—situations. The writing is careful, precise, shocking—stylistically brilliant. The stories are sometimes surreal, but convincing all the same. They take your breath away!”—Bobbie Ann Mason, author of The Girl in the Blue Beret"Paul Griner's Hurry Please I Want to Know takes the reader on a sweeping tour of America—from Iraqi soldiers to prison telemarketers, from famous cartoonists to bone procurers, from missing persons to the resurrected dead–the real, the surreal and everything in-between. Griner seems to know everybody's secrets, and this astonishing collection sets out to reveal them.—Dan Chaon, author of Await Your Reply and Stay Awake “Paul Griner is a daredevil of a storyteller, fearless but always in control, equally adept at wild satire and sharp-edged domestic drama. Anyone who cares about the short story—or just loves good writing—should make a beeline for this remarkable collection.”—Tom Perrotta