Description
Book SynopsisReaders will be intrigued by the way these stories transgress the boundaries of the uncanny and the real, incorporating the ever-present threat of global pandemics (including encephalitis lethargica, described by Oliver Sacks in Awakenings), natural disasters (including the infamous 1889 flood of Johnstown, PA, which occurred after a dam failure and resulted in the deaths of over 2,200 people), and the radical therapeutic communities of the 1960s and ’70s that transformed into the profitable, pseudo-medical and religious, self-help programs of today. Brian Booker is an Iowa Writers’ Workshop graduate whose fiction has been published by Vice and in major literary journals and magazines such as the New England Review, Tin House, One Story, and Conjunctions. This well-honed collection should be a breakout debut. Bellevue has developed a reputation of excellence with short story collections. Recent collections have been reviewed on the front page of the New York Times Book Review, on NPR’s All Thing Considered and Morning Edition (by Nancy Pearl), and in the pages of O, The Oprah Magazine and Elle. They have also been included on Amazon.com’s Best Books of the Month list and named as Library Journal and Shelf Awareness Best Books of the Year.
Trade Review“Booker’s writing is raw, haunting, and otherworldly in the pursuit of his characters’ emotional lives. . . . I loved the diversity of this collection—there is a hypochondriac, a paranoid academic, a teenager coming into his sexuality, and a boy who finds a mermaid on the beach. I’m here for Booker’s beautiful, brilliant debut.” —Paris Review “Delivers seven compelling vignettes that tell different stories but are seamlessly threaded by a common factor: illness. Each individually titled vignette showcases the lyrical and phantasmagorical voice that Booker uses to colorfully display each character and their sometimes real and sometimes imagined affliction.” —Time Out New York “Unrelenting in its exploration of what we can know about ourselves, Are You Here For What I’m Here For? is an enchanting journey that lingers with its reader long after the last page.” —One Story “[Booker] has a markedly arresting storytelling style in this debut collection.” —Toronto Star “Outstanding. . . . Are You Here For What I’m Here For? rings with memorable characters, scenes, and settings. Brian Booker’s magical realism reminds me of “A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings” by Gabriel García Márquez—rich with melancholic truths and mystery.” —New Pages “Excellent. . . . Booker has a way of catching the nuances of the American psyche. The writing is crisp; the characters are believable.” —Lambda Literary “Elegant and inventive. . . . Ambiguity fuels Booker’s work, and it’s what makes his short stories worth reading over and over again. Every time I open this book, I find something new.” —Rumpus “The title of the collection perfectly captures the anxiety of constant searching for: understanding, solutions, or a safe space. . . . The inner monologues are relatable and juicy. Our narrators aren’t smoke and dagger types, rather they are mothers and fathers, sons and daughters, ordinary people just moving through life. . . . None of these personas are superheroes or mad scientists, though their limitations are illuminating.” —EDGE Media Network “It’s hard to find [a story] so original, so dead-on in its prose, so engaging, I sped my way through its thirty-something pages, completely entranced by Booker’s writing, imagination, and execution.” —Story366 “This book has some real high moments . . . impressive imagery and diverse characters.” —Cultured Vultures “With a keen eye for detail, Booker announces himself as a premier storyteller whose work crosses genre boundaries, appealing to fans of mystery, suspense, and literary fiction.” —Publishers Weekly “Brian Booker’s stories contain a phantasmagorical hilarity, along with a headlong momentum that only accelerates as the stories’ events grow more dire. You can open this book to any page and will find there amazing events related in a deeply unsettling style. I don’t know of any writing quite like his. Are You Here For What I’m Here For? is a brilliant debut.” —CHARLES BAXTER, author of The Soul Thief and There’s Something I Want You to Do “Brian Booker’s stories are contagiously readable. Like many of the maladies they so vividly describe, they seem at once believable and otherworldly, casting the spell of an uncanny fever dream. But while the characters in these tales may languish, their reader—braced by Booker’s delightfully unsettling imagination—emerges always invigorated.” —MICHAEL LOWENTHAL, author of Charity Girl and The Paternity Test “Reading Brian Booker’s stories is like lolling on your sofa, or strolling the streets of your town, when you look around and it dawns on you that everything you thought you recognized is suddenly . . . different. The unnerving newspaper headline, those weird jars in the fridge, the off-kilter conversation with that too friendly stranger—the quotidian and the unremarkable are rendered strange and new, and the effect is, to quote the author, `a little like nectar and a little like poison.’ These are terrific stories, and Booker is a terrific writer.” —DANIEL OROZCO, author of Orientation “An unforgettable collection of people trying to learn how—and whether—to trust their own minds. Booker’s theme, like that of Kafka and W.G. Sebald, is dislocation, as much from the physical world as from the world of others and of thought. The writing brims with intelligent detail, but always in the service of its characters—people striving for `new, uncharted places,’ reachable nowhere else but in these singular stories.” —SALVATORE SCIBONA, author of The End “Brian Booker is a realist the way Kafka or Ishiguro are realists—he works at the seams of our experience, in those anxious moments where we cannot be sure of our senses, our memories, or our selves. In these extraordinary and uncanny stories, anxiety, neurosis, disease, and hallucination overtake his characters and haunt the worlds they inhabit. Are You Here For What I’m Here For? teems with unsettling wisdom about all those things our minds and hearts contain that we wish they did not.” —CASEY WALKER, author of Last Days in Shanghai
Booker’s writing is raw, haunting, and otherworldly in the pursuit of his characters’ emotional lives. . . . I loved the diversity of this collectionthere is a hypochondriac, a paranoid academic, a teenager coming into his sexuality, and a boy who finds a mermaid on the beach. I’m here for Booker’s beautiful, brilliant debut.” Paris Review Delivers seven compelling vignettes that tell different stories but are seamlessly threaded by a common factor: illness. Each individually titled vignette showcases the lyrical and phantasmagorical voice that Booker uses to colorfully display each character and their sometimes real and sometimes imagined affliction.” Time Out New York Unrelenting in its exploration of what we can know about ourselves, Are You Here For What I’m Here For? is an enchanting journey that lingers with its reader long after the last page.” One Story [Booker] has a markedly arresting storytelling style in this debut collection.” Toronto Star Outstanding. . . . Are You Here For What I’m Here For? rings with memorable characters, scenes, and settings. Brian Booker’s magical realism reminds me of A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings” by Gabriel García Márquezrich with melancholic truths and mystery.” New Pages Excellent. . . . Booker has a way of catching the nuances of the American psyche. The writing is crisp; the characters are believable.” Lambda Literary Elegant and inventive. . . . Ambiguity fuels Booker’s work, and it’s what makes his short stories worth reading over and over again. Every time I open this book, I find something new.” Rumpus The title of the collection perfectly captures the anxiety of constant searching for: understanding, solutions, or a safe space. . . . The inner monologues are relatable and juicy. Our narrators aren’t smoke and dagger types, rather they are mothers and fathers, sons and daughters, ordinary people just moving through life. . . . None of these personas are superheroes or mad scientists, though their limitations are illuminating.” EDGE Media Network It’s hard to find [a story] so original, so dead-on in its prose, so engaging, I sped my way through its thirty-something pages, completely entranced by Booker’s writing, imagination, and execution.” Story366 This book has some real high moments . . . impressive imagery and diverse characters.” Cultured Vultures With a keen eye for detail, Booker announces himself as a premier storyteller whose work crosses genre boundaries, appealing to fans of mystery, suspense, and literary fiction.” Publishers Weekly Brian Booker’s stories contain a phantasmagorical hilarity, along with a headlong momentum that only accelerates as the stories’ events grow more dire. You can open this book to any page and will find there amazing events related in a deeply unsettling style. I don’t know of any writing quite like his. Are You Here For What I’m Here For? is a brilliant debut.” CHARLES BAXTER, author of The Soul Thief and There’s Something I Want You to Do Brian Booker’s stories are contagiously readable. Like many of the maladies they so vividly describe, they seem at once believable and otherworldly, casting the spell of an uncanny fever dream. But while the characters in these tales may languish, their readerbraced by Booker’s delightfully unsettling imaginationemerges always invigorated.” MICHAEL LOWENTHAL, author of Charity Girl and The Paternity Test Reading Brian Booker’s stories is like lolling on your sofa, or strolling the streets of your town, when you look around and it dawns on you that everything you thought you recognized is suddenly . . . different. The unnerving newspaper headline, those weird jars in the fridge, the off-kilter conversation with that too friendly strangerthe quotidian and the unremarkable are rendered strange and new, and the effect is, to quote the author, a little like nectar and a little like poison.’ These are terrific stories, and Booker is a terrific writer.” DANIEL OROZCO, author of Orientation An unforgettable collection of people trying to learn howand whetherto trust their own minds. Booker’s theme, like that of Kafka and W.G. Sebald, is dislocation, as much from the physical world as from the world of others and of thought. The writing brims with intelligent detail, but always in the service of its characterspeople striving for new, uncharted places,’ reachable nowhere else but in these singular stories.” SALVATORE SCIBONA, author of The End Brian Booker is a realist the way Kafka or Ishiguro are realistshe works at the seams of our experience, in those anxious moments where we cannot be sure of our senses, our memories, or our selves. In these extraordinary and uncanny stories, anxiety, neurosis, disease, and hallucination overtake his characters and haunt the worlds they inhabit. Are You Here For What I’m Here For? teems with unsettling wisdom about all those things our minds and hearts contain that we wish they did not.” CASEY WALKER, author of Last Days in Shanghai
