Charles Baxter inaugurates The Art of, a new series on the craft of writing, with the wit and intelligence he brought to his celebrated book Burning Down the House: Essays on Fiction.Fiction writer and essayist Charles Baxter's The Art of Subtext: Beyond Plot discusses and illustrates the hidden subtextual overtones and undertones in fictional works haunted by the unspoken, the suppressed, and the secreted. Using an array of examples from Melville and Dos...

Searching and erudite new essays on writing from the author of Burning Down the House.Charles Baxter’s new collection of essays, Wonderlands, joins his other works of nonfiction, Burning Down the House and The Art of Subtext. In the mold of those books, Baxter shares years of wisdom and reflection on what makes fiction work, including essays that were first given as craft talks at the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference.The es...

From the winner of the PEN/Malamud Award and “one of our most gifted writers” (Chicago Tribune) comes a comic novel about a divorced Midwestern dad who takes a cutting-edge medical test and learns that he has a predisposition to murder.In this fresh take on love and trouble in America, Brock Hobson, an insurance salesman and Sunday-school teacher, finds his equilibrium disturbed by the results of a predictive blood test. Baxter, a master storyteller, bring...

National Book Award Finalist • A superb novel that delicately unearths the myriad manifestations of extraordinary love between ordinary people, from "one of our most gifted writers" (Chicago Tribune) and the winner of the PEN/Malamud Award"A near perfect book, as deep as it is broad in its humaneness, comedy and wisdom." —The Washington PostThe Feast of Love is just that—a sumptuous work of fiction about the thing that mos...

A New York Times Notable Book from the winner of the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in the Short Story and “one of our most gifted writers” (Chicago Tribune)By turns compassionate, gently humorous, and haunting, this collection—sixteen classics with seven new stories—proves William Maxwell’s assertion that “nobody can touch Charles Baxter in the field that he has carved out for himself.”Whether friends or strangers, the characters in the...

"There’s something I want you to do.” This request—sometimes simple, sometimes not—forms the basis for the ten interrelated short stories that comprise this latest penetrating and prophetic collection from the winner of the PEN/Malamud Award and “one of our most gifted writers” (Chicago Tribune).As we follow a diverse group of Minnesota citizens, each grappling with their own heightened fears, responsibilities, and obsessions, Baxter unveils the r...

Graywolf reissues one of its most successful essay collections with two new essays and a new foreword by Charles BaxterAs much a rumination on the state of literature as a technical manual for aspiring writers, Burning Down the House has been enjoyed by readers and taught in classrooms for more than a decade. Readers are rewarded with thoughtful analysis, humorous one-liners, and plenty of brushfires that continue burning long after the book is closed.

As two grown siblings explore their complicated history over one hot Fourth of July weekend, they come to terms with the experiences that put such distance between them and discover the imperfect love that ties them—from the winner of the PEN/Malamud Award and “one of our most gifted writers” (Chicago Tribune).Hugh Welch has cared for his little sister Dorsey ever since they were children, when Dorsey looked at him as though he were a god. But when Dorsey ...

In this extraordinary novel of mischief and menace, we see a young man's very self vanishing before his eyes—from the winner of the PEN/Malamud Award and “one of our most gifted writers” (Chicago Tribune)"Entirely original.... So craftily construcyed that to appreciate how liberally Baxter plants creepy hints of what's to come a reader should really savor this book twice." —The Washington PostAs a graduate student in upstate New York, Nath...

In 'Salem Witchcraft (Vol. I&II)', Charles Wentworth Upham provides a comprehensive account of the infamous witch trials that took place in Salem, Massachusetts in the late 17th century. Upham combines historical research with a narrative style that immerses the reader in the chilling events that unfolded during this dark period in American history. The author's detailed analysis of the social, political, and religious factors that contributed to the hysteria surrounding the witch trials o...

From the collection Gryphon, Charles Baxter’s luminous story of caretaking under any circumstance.Burrage never thought he’d be the responsible one. When his brother and sister-in-law die in a car accident, he becomes caretaker to his young nephew, a fragile boy who wants to know what the future will be. Burrage begins writing the boy’s horoscope—stars, trains, and hide-and-seek—until his predictions begin to fail, in a rowboat, in the middle of a lake.Charles Baxt...

From the winner of the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence and “one of our most gifted writers” (Chicago Tribune), Saul and Patsy is "stunning, never predictable, glimmering fiction, full of mischief and insight" (The Los Angeles Times).Five Oaks, Michigan is not exactly where Saul and Patsy meant to end up. Both from the East Coast, they met in college, fell in love, and settled down to married life in the Midwest. Saul is Jewish and a comp...