Why visit America : stories / Matthew Baker.
Record details
- ISBN: 9781250237200 (hardcover)
- ISBN: 1250237203
- Physical Description: 354 pages ; 25 cm
- Edition: First edition.
- Publisher: New York, New York : Henry Holt and Company, 2020.
- Copyright: ©2020
Content descriptions
Formatted Contents Note: | Fighting words -- Rites -- The transition -- Life sentence -- A bad day in Utopia -- Testimony of your majesty -- The sponsor -- One big happy family -- Appearance -- Lost souls -- The tour -- Why visit America -- To be read backward. |
Search for related items by subject
Subject: | United States > Civilization > Fiction. |
Genre: | Short stories. |
Available copies
- 1 of 1 copy available at Kenton County.
Holds
- 0 current holds with 1 total copy.
Location | Call Number / Copy Notes | Barcode | Shelving Location | Status | Due Date |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Covington Branch | BAKER M (Text) | 33126024451431 | Adult Fiction | Available | - |
- Baker & Taylor
"The citizens of Plainfield, Texas have had it with the broke-down United States. So they vote to secede, rename themselves America in memory of our former country, and happily set themselves up to receive tourists from their closest neighbor: America. Couldn't happen? Well, it might, and so it goes in the thirteen stories in Matthew Baker's brilliantly illuminating, incisive, and heartbreaking collection WHY VISIT AMERICA"-- - Baker & Taylor
A collection of 13 stories by the Edgar Award-nominated author of If You Find This imagines a satirical world in which a Texas community secedes from a broken United States and becomes a classic America-inspired tourist destination. 40,000 first printing. - McMillan Palgrave
Equal parts speculative and satirical, the stories in Why Visit America form an exegesis of our current political predicament, while offering an eloquent plea for connection and hope.
The citizens of Plainfield, Texas, have had it with the broke-down United States. So they vote to secede, rename themselves America in memory of their former country, and happily set themselves up to receive tourists from their closest neighbor: America. Couldnât happen? Well, it might, and so it goes in the thirteen stories in Matthew Bakerâs brilliantly illuminating, incisive, and heartbreaking collection Why Visit America.
The book opens with a seemingly traditional story in which the speculative element is extremely minimalâthe narrator has a job that doesnât actually existâa story that wouldnât seem much out of place in a collection of literary realism. From there the stories get progressively stranger: a young man breaks the news to his family that he is going to transitionâfrom an analog body to a digital existence. A young woman abducts a childâher ownâfrom a government-run childcare facility. A man returns home after committing a great crime, his sentence being that his memoryâhis entire lifeâis wiped clean.
As the book moves from universe to universe, the stories cross between different American genres: from bildungsroman to rom com, western to dystopian, including fantasy, horror, erotica, and a noir detective mystery. Read together, these parallel-universe stories create a composite portrait of the true nature of the United States and a Through the Looking-Glass reflection of who we are as a country.