A rigorous examination of the workings of fiction by the novelist Robert Boswell, "one of America's finest writers" (Tom Perrotta)Robert Boswell has been writing, reading, and teaching literature for more than twenty years. In this sparkling collection of essays, he brings this vast experience and a keen critical eye to bear on craft issues facing literary writers. Examples from masters such as Leo Tolstoy, Flannery O'Connor, and Alice Munro illustrate this engagin...

There's a specter floating above the pews at afternoon mass. Father Montgovery has no idea why the ghostly presence has followed him around for years, but, when a longtime parishioner asks for help in getting his drug-addicted daughter clean, Father Montgovery must do his best to ignore the phantom and shift his focus to the physical, and sometimes harrowing, world. Written by esteemed author and former Ploughshares guest editor Robert Boswell, "The Soul in Paraphrase" explores sin, redemp...

Nine long stories and essays, originally published in the acclaimed Ploughshares Solos digital series, create this fourth annual print collection.Visit a small island off the coast of Maine where the reappearance of an old friend might just push a painter suffering from artist’s block over the edge. Meet a newly divorced lecturer of critical theory who, in an effort to spice up his life, gets more than he bargained for. Tag along with a teenage figure-skating star as she returns to...

Robert Boswell's first novel since Century's Son showcases once again his "dazzling technical skill, intelligence and moral seriousness" (The New York Times Book Review)*A Library Journal "Best Indie Fiction of 2013" *At age thirty-three, James Candler seems to be well on the road to success. He's in line for a big promotion at Onyx Springs, the treatment facility where he's a therapist. He has a fiancée, a sizable house, and a Por...

Heyday of the Insensitive Bastards is an exhilarating collection, as brash as it is wise, by Robert Boswell one of our great storytellersSet mainly in small, gritty American cities, each of these stories is a world unto itself. A man's obsessive visits to a fortuneteller leave him nearly homeless. Time collapses as two marriages slowly dissolve. And in the searing title story, a young man recounts the summer he spent in a mountain town, squatting in a borrowed hous...

Publisher's summaryBrand-new stories by: Tom Abrahams, Robert Boswell, Sarah Cortez, Anton DiSclafani, Stephanie Jaye Evans, Wanjiku Wa Ngugi, Adrienne Perry, Pia Pico, Reyes Ramirez, Icess Fernandez Rojas, Sehba Sarwar, Leslie Contreras Schwartz, Larry Watts, and Deborah D.E.E.P. Mouton.Critic reviews"Brooklyn Noir came first in 2004, and now, 15 years later, Houston Noir--14 stories of intrigue, betrayal and death set from Tanglewood to Third Ward penned by cu...

In which Vlad Taltos finds himself, much to his surprise, at the fateful Battle of Baritt's TombMarching through mud just isn't as much fun as they say.After years of surviving in Adrilankha by practicing the trade he knows best—killing people for a living—suddenly Vlad Taltos finds himself in the last place any self-respecting assassin wants to be: the army. Worse, he's right in the middle of a apocalyptic battle between two sorcerous armies, and everyone ...

Barrett Fuller is a world-famous and very wealthy children's author who writes under a pseudonym because he's a self-absorbed womanizer and drug-user. His life changes when he receives an extortion letter, challenging him to live up to the morals he currently espouses in his books. He is presented with a series of tasks to complete or face having his identity revealed to the public, resulting in the ruin of his financial empire.Richard Fuller, Barrett's nephew, has a secret too, an...

Accused of conspiring with rebels to steal the throne, Princess Elizabeth is relegated to the Tower of London by her half-sister, Queen Mary. There she finds solace in the arms of a fellow prisoner--her childhood friend, Robert Dudley. Certain their days are numbered, their bond deepens. But they are spared the axe and Elizabeth soon wins the crown, while Robert returns to his wife and the unhappy union he believes cheated him of his destiny to be king. . .As a daughter of Henry VI...

David Poyer's cycle of modern Navy tales ranks among the finest nautical fiction of our time. With China Sea, his self-doubting protagonist Daniel V. Lenson faces for the first time the unforgiving challenge of command at sea.Ordered to relieve an alcoholic skipper, Dan finds he has inherited a damaged ship, an untrustworthy crew, and an ambiguous mission. He is to take the USS Oliver C. Gaddis, soon to become the PNS Tughril, on her final voyage to be donated to Pakistan....

A New York Times Best SellerA New York Times Book Review Editors' ChoiceBetty Weissmann has just been dumped by her husband of forty-eight years. Exiled from her elegant New York apartment by her husband's mistress, she and her two middle-aged daughters, Miranda and Annie, regroup in a run-down Westport, Connecticut, beach cottage. In Schine's playful and devoted homage to Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility, the impulsive sister i...

She calls herself Ash, but that's not her real name. She is a farmer's faithful wife, but she has left her husband to don the uniform of a Union soldier in the Civil War. *Neverhome tells the harrowing story of Ash Thompson during the battle for the South. Through bloodshed and hysteria and heartbreak, she becomes a hero, a folk legend, a madwoman and a traitor to the American cause.Laird Hunt's dazzling novel throws a light on the adventurous women who chose to fight instead of st...