Ben Marcus

"Thirteen transfixing new stories from one of the most innovative writers of his generation and one of the most vital and original voices of our time--for fans of George Saunders, Nathan Englander, and Elizabeth Strout. In these thirteen ingenious stories, Ben Marcus reveals moments of redemption in the sometimes nightmarish modern world. In "The Grow-Light Blues," a hapless, corporate drone finds love after being disfigured testing his employer's...

A collection of life-affirming tales includes the dystopian "Rollingwood," in which a divorced father struggles with employment while caring for an ailing infant; and the title story, in which a narrator's marriage and sanity unravel in a single breathless sentence.

A collection of stories cataloging our culture. In Automobile, Watchdog, one reads: "The anterior, orfront surface of the auto is covered with the samemembrane that lines the horse-drawn carriage, the mostnotable difference being the absence of a neighing unit todeflect with snorts and brays the flow of air."

Sometimes calculating, other times bewildered, Catapult's characters orbit around each other enacting the deeply human tragicomedy of wit and misunderstanding and loss. With dexterous, atmospheric, and darkly comic prose, Fridlund conjures worlds where longing is open-ended, intentions misfire, and the line between comfort and cruelty is often difficult to discern. A gripping collection, unsettling in its familiar strangeness.