Finally available in the United States, a singular story collection that Time Out declared "unsettlingly brilliant"
Astudent's suicide note is not what it seems. A high school football rivalry turns absurd--and deadly. A much-loved cat seems to have been a different animal all along. A pair of identical twins aren't identical at all--or even related. A man finds his own yellowed birth announcement inside a bureau bought at auction. Set in a small upstate New York town, told in a conversational style, Pieces for the Left Hand is a stream of a hundred anecdotes, none much longer than a page. At once funny, bizarre, familiar, and disturbing, these deceptively straightforward tales nevertheless shock and amaze through uncanny coincidence, tragic misunderstanding, strange occurrence, or sudden insight. Unposted letters, unexpected visitors, false memories--in J. Robert Lennon's vision of America, these are the things that decide our fate. Wry and deadpan, powerful and philosophical, these addictive little tales reveal the everyday world as a strange and eerie place.
J. Robert Lennon is the author of five novels, including Mailman and The Light of Falling Stars. His stories have appeared in The Paris Review, Granta, Harper's, Playboy, and The New Yorker. He lives in Ithaca, New York, with his wife and two sons.
"I am an American, Chicago born—Chicago that somber city..." A novel, MEISELMAN: THE LEAN YEARS, out now from @TortoiseBooks.
@Aaron__Burch My grandmother randomly gifted me the 2005 BASS, where I discovered one of my all-time favorite stories. Lynn Sharon Schwartz’s “A Taste of Dust.” I also became a J Robert Lennon fan after reading the Eight Pieces For the Left Hand.