Description
Book SynopsisThe riddles of desire, youth, old age, poverty, and wealth are laid bare in this radiant collection from a master of the form. From inner-city pawnshops to highpowered law firms, from the desert of California to the coast of France, The Flounder paints a vivid portrait of how complex and poignant everyday life can be. Told in vibrant, incantatory prose, these moving, lyrical, and surprising stories teeter between desperation and hope, with Fulton showing us what lasts in an impermanent world.
Trade ReviewAdvanced Praise for The Flounder: "In The Flounder, John Fulton writes about men caught in riptides, navigating the rough emotional waters of love, marriage and family. A boy faces his father's terminal illness. A Mormon teenager traveling through post-Soviet Europe fails to lose his virginity. A young husband takes a road trip with his unfaithful wife. Fulton is a writer of great humanity, with an eye for the revelatory moment. These are masterful short stories -- closely observed, moving, memorable and profound." -- New York Times bestselling author Jennifer Haigh; "The Flounder is a collection of stories that feels unified by topic and tone-although the tones are various and the diction supple-as well as in, from time to time, the names of characters. Marital fidelity and infidelity are at issue here, as is the relation between generations and the search for (one might as well call it) authenticity. And the real connective tissue is the talent of its author, whose eye for detail is both telescopic and microscopic. Whether set in rural North America or towns and villages in Europe, John Fulton's fictions ring true." --Nicholas Delbanco, author of, most recently, Why Writing Matters; "Faced with apocalypses that are sometimes private and sometimes prophesized, the characters in John Fulton's The Flounder wrestle with faith in many forms. These are stories that illuminate human realities of love and betrayal, life and death using a touch of the miraculous. The result is an elegant collection with a timeless sensibility, as well as the ecstatic capacity to make its readers see their lives anew." --Allegra Hyde, author of The Last Catastrophe; "The Flounder is a remarkable book, full of remarkable stories, stories that move quickly through time while simultaneously being firmly rooted in place, stories that manage to be intimate while also having sweep, and grandeur. In this, they remind me of work by Alice Munro and John Cheever, but really, they're 100% John Fulton: smart, deeply felt, and ingeniously constructed stories of how we go to extraordinary lengths to keep on living our ordinary lives. Brock Clarke author of Who Are You, Calvin Bledsoe? Praise for other books by John Fulton: For Retribution: "Thank goodness...for the assured, polished, and heartfelt short stories in John Fulton's first collection... Like the best short stories, Fulton's say as much between the lines as they do in their tight sentences and tough situations." -Chicago Tribune; "John Fulton may be a relative newcomer, but he writes like an old master in this powerful collection of short stories...with penetrating honesty that is worlds away from jukebox sentiment. Most impressive of all is his uncanny insight, reminiscent of J.D. Salinger, into the inner life of children."-The Boston Sunday Globe; "Dynamic stories...that cover some tough emotional terrain in a delicately quirky voice that's just right for revealing life's dangers, debauches, and dead ends." -Elle; For More than Enough: "Make no mistake, this is one of the finest debuts in years... It is a treasure of a debut, beautifully written, a human reminder that money is not everything despite the message behind the American Dream." -Sunday Tribune Dublin; "Fulton is wincingly sharp on...materialism... [His characters] are drawn with emotional exactitude and profound tenderness." -Daily Telegraph; "Fulton pins his characters painfully and honestly to the page." -Guardian; "Too often books that attempt to talk about the American dream do just that, without engaging the reader. Fulton's achievement is to write compelling fiction that sucks you into the maelstrom that engulfs the middle-class... A wonderful work..." -The Herald (Glasgow); "This hauntingly sad story [gives]...beautifully written insight into the tough reality behind the American dream, for those without the good fortune to achieve it." -The Daily Mail; For The Animal Girl: "Fulton is a writer of transcendent understanding of human emotions. His decent and likeable characters lead lives that are shadowed by unbearable losses... He has a deep feel for natural setting, and his descriptions recall Hemingway's Nick Adams stories... Fulton's collection is another gem..." -The Advocate; "Fulton's fiction is written in a rich, lyrical prose that is both precise and resonant... His fictional characters are rendered with the complexity we afford the people in our own lives." -The News and Observer; "These short stories and novellas are crystallized fiction that manage to tell complete tales in a few pages... Fulton does a careful, detailed job in limning the frustrating emotional life of his characters." -Library Journal; "John Fulton's fine new collection...is stunningly insightful... at once coolly dispassionate yet steadily compassionate... Fulton's absolutely a voice to follow." -The Antioch Review
