It wasn’t all poodle skirts and rock n’ roll—in Stony River, N.J., the 50s was a perilous time to come of age. Absent mothers, controlling fathers, biblical injunctions, teenage longing and small-town
“Subtle, such patient stories.… The effect is cumulative, quietly powerful. A remarkable talent.”—Michael Knight, The Typist“Moss’s lyrical collection of stories is beautifully held together by deft o
"Blauner never shies away from the grotesque, or the beautiful. . . . Courageous and innovative and mesmerizing, Frankenstein for a new age." Helen Phillips,The Beautiful Bureaucrat"A s
TRIP WIRES travels around the world, with stories, many of children, set against turbulent socio-political backdrops from Afghanistan to Syria to Columbia to America, and examines how the dilemma of i
The people of Greenhorns reflect the different ways Jewish immigrants took to America in the early 20th century, and how America affected them. A kosher butcher with a gambling problem. A Jewish Pygm
It’s summer in a small, Midwestern city, and babies are burning to death in their cribs under odd circumstances. A number of theories are presented by the six narrators of the novel, but the truth of
Praise for John Smelcer:"Smelcer's anger about these stolen children is apparent but controlled, and he provides a well-judged balance of horror and hope, with the friendship among his protagonists gi
2,000 years ago an itinerant Jewish preacher was condemned to crucifixion. A man named Simon, from Cyrene, was compelled to help Jesus carry the heavy cross. What did he and Jesus talk about? Eager to
Memento Mori is a meditation on mortality, change and loss. Rather than being simply somber, this volume observes our human condition through a poetic kaleidoscope, with glimpses of irony and humor th
In the mythologies of cultures worldwide, Raven, or his smaller cousin, Crow, is often portrayed as an ever-selfish, ever-hungry trickster and destroyer. In this collection, John Smelcer has crafted R
Charles Bukowksi, Hubert Selby Jr., and Denis Johnson are familiar names in the literature about the druggies, rockers, criminals, and whores who habituate the dark side of American fiction, but there
