{"product_id":"an-oral-history-of-atlantis-isbn-9780812998993","title":"An Oral History of Atlantis","description":"\u003cb\u003eGilt-edged stories that slice clean through the mundanity of modern life, from the author of \u003ci\u003eSame Bed Different Dreams,\u003c\/i\u003e a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and winner of the \u003ci\u003eLos Angeles Times\u003c\/i\u003e Book Prize\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e“Ed Park is one of the funniest writers working today, and among the most humane.”—Kaveh Akbar, author of \u003ci\u003eMartyr!\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eA BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: \u003ci\u003eTime, \u003c\/i\u003eNPR, \u003ci\u003eBoston Globe, Electric Lit, Lit Hub, Shelf Awareness\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn “Machine City” a college student’s chance role in a friend’s movie blurs the line between his character and his true self. (Is he a robot?) In “Slide to Unlock” a man comes to terms with his life via the passwords he struggles to remember in extremis. (What’s his mom’s name backward?) And in “Weird Menace” a director and faded movie star gab about science fiction, bad costume choices, and lost loves on a commentary track for a B-film from the ’80s that neither remembers all that well.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn Ed Park’s utterly original collection, \u003ci\u003eAn Oral History of Atlantis, \u003c\/i\u003echaracters bemoan their fleeting youth, focus on their breathing, meet cute, break up, write book reviews, translate ancient glyphs, bid on stuff online, whale watch, and once in a while find solace in the sublime. Throughout, Park deploys his trademark wit to create a world both strikingly recognizable and delightfully other. Spanning a quarter century, these sixteen stories tell the absurd truth about our lives. They capture the moment when the present becomes the past—and are proof positive that Ed Park is one of the most imaginative and insightful writers working today.“To speak of Park’s creativity is also to speak of his humanity—empathy is a function of the imagination, of course, and it makes sense that a mind capable of dreaming these worlds and sister verses would also be able to endow them with spirits as vivid and complex as our own. It’s dazzling, this steady carousel of delight and stunned awe. Park is one of the funniest writers working today, and among the most humane.”\u003cb\u003e—Kaveh Akbar, author of \u003ci\u003eMartyr!\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“What’s the collective noun for a school of stories so bright and brilliant, they ripple with humor, compassion, and wonder? Call them an ‘Ed Park.’ \u003ci\u003eAn Oral History of Atlantis\u003c\/i\u003e will continue to delight us, long after the flood.”\u003cb\u003e—Samantha Hunt, author of \u003ci\u003eThe Dark Dark\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Ed Park is a magician of storytelling. These stories explore the multiplicity of time and space—artistic, historical, and psychological—and confront once and again the shapeshifting border between reality and unreality. With sly humor and deep understanding, Park makes the reader laugh from disquiet, and tear up from being seen.”\u003cb\u003e—Yiyun Li, author of \u003ci\u003eWednesday’s Child\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Funny, tragic, winsome screwball science-fiction prose poetry of ‘maximum lexical density’ that’s pure pleasure to read.”\u003cb\u003e—Sarah Manguso, author of \u003ci\u003eLiars\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“\u003ci\u003eAn Oral History of Atlantis\u003c\/i\u003e is a snapshot of who we are and where we are as well as an offbeat map to where we might dare to go. The stories are mordant, inventive, heartbreaking, and above all else, profoundly human, and I’m already looking forward to a re-read.”\u003cb\u003e—Paul Tremblay, \u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e bestselling author of \u003ci\u003eHorror Movie\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“The James Joyce of Korean-American literature, and of our times.”\u003cb\u003e—Ilyon Woo, author of \u003ci\u003eMaster Slave Husband Wife\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Park’s delightful tales, which are driven by provocative ideas, strange occurrences, and gripping plots, pay tribute to the legacy of Kurt Vonnegut in the best ways. This pitch-perfect collection will linger in readers’ minds for a long time.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e, starred review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Park infuses his debut story collection with the same extraordinary inventiveness that made his novel \u003ci\u003eSame Bed Different Dreams \u003c\/i\u003e(2023) a Pulitzer Prize finalist. . . . Throughout his 16 stories, [he] deftly upends quotidian expectations, encourages discomfort, and presents surreality with biting humor.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eBooklist\u003c\/i\u003e, starred review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003eEd Park\u003c\/b\u003e is the author of the novels \u003ci\u003eSame Bed Different Dreams\u003c\/i\u003e, which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, won the \u003ci\u003eLos Angeles Times\u003c\/i\u003e Book Prize for Fiction, was named a Top Ten Book of the Year by \u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e and was a \u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e Notable Book; and \u003ci\u003ePersonal Days\u003c\/i\u003e, a finalist for the PEN\/Hemingway Award. His short fiction has appeared in \u003ci\u003eThe New Yorker\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eMcSweeney’s\u003c\/i\u003e,\u003ci\u003e Vice\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eHarvard Review\u003c\/i\u003e, and other periodicals and anthologies, and he writes regularly for\u003ci\u003e The New York Review of Books, Harper’s, The Atlantic, Bookforum, \u003c\/i\u003eand elsewhere. Ed was a founding editor of \u003ci\u003eThe Believer\u003c\/i\u003e and the former literary editor of \u003ci\u003eThe Voice Literary Supplement\u003c\/i\u003e, and has also worked in publishing. Born in Buffalo, he lives in Manhattan with his family, and currently teaches writing at Princeton University.\u003cb\u003eBRING ON THE DANCING HORSES\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhen I call my parents, my mom tells me my dad is busy teaching a class on the internet. That is, the class is in a classroom but the topic is the internet. More specifically, he’s teaching seniors—that is, old people—how to blog, write anonymous comments on news articles without panicking, poke their children on Facebook, and get away with not writing h, t, t, p, colon, forward slash, forward slash, w, w, w, dot before every web address. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI had no idea my dad liked the internet so much. “Who said anything about like?” my mom says. I can hear her clicking away at her keyboard in the background. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMy dad is retired—or was. Is it that they need the money? I fantasize about a heretofore unknown gambling problem, hush funds, love children. My mom sells my old comic books and De La Soul cassingles on eBay. She doesn’t know I know. Every so often I’ll think about stuff I loved in my youth, and a search inevitably brings up her dealer name. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI amp the bidding when it seems safe. You could say I’m looking out for her. But how is it that her four grown kids have neglected their parents’ financial needs?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI go to bed with a nagging sense of guilt, though this is how I usually go to bed. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e≈ \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMy girlfriend, Tabby, reviews science fiction for a living, which just goes to show you that America is still the greatest, most useless country in the world. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShe went to Penumbra College in Vermont and is ABD in comparative literature at Rue University. She’s been ABD ever since we met, back when I didn’t know what it stood for. Her dissertation is about one or possibly all of these things: manservant literature, robot literature, and the literature of deception. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTabby is considerably older than me, and by considerably I mean over ten years. I told my parents five, but I don’t think they believed me. Tabitha Grammaticus remembers not only life before the internet, but life before the affordable and relatively silent electric typewriter. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShe reads fast, writes faster. She does monthly columns for the \u003ci\u003eCalifornia Science Fiction Review\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eExoplanets \u003c\/i\u003emagazine, and the website for the Northwest Airlines’ Frequent Flier Book Club, which is getting a soft launch. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e≈ \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI didn’t think it was possible for someone to read as fast as Tabby does, and for a long time I assumed she was a skimmer. But whenever I’d quiz her on a novel that we’d both read, she knew every detail. I’d sit there with the book open and ask things like: “Who answers the door in the middle of chapter 7?” \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI tried to keep up with Tabby’s reviewing, but it’s hard when someone’s so prolific. I am not friends with many writers, mostly because that means having to read all their articles, stories, essays, books, and even poetry. They expect you to have read it all. With Tabby, I tried. I really did. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut she’s what she calls a stylist. I gave up on her Exoplanets column after the third one. I got stuck on the opening line: “All time travel is essentially Oedipal.” \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTabby is a brilliant genius in her own way, but sometimes I worry that she is turning into an alien. Lately we don’t go out much, and she has taken to wearing what she calls a housecoat about the house. Whenever I’d come across the word “housecoat” in a brittle British novel of misaddressed correspondence and quiet adultery, I would try to picture what was meant. I was never sure, but surely it isn’t this thing that Tabby more or less lives in, a sort of down-filled poncho with stirrups.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e≈ \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAt the same time I’m attracted to this girl at work. I don’t even want to know how old she is. My guess is that she’s younger than me by a margin nearly as great as that separating me from Tabby. But what do I know about age? I thought Tabby was my age when I met her. I’m not a good judge of these things, possibly of anything. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe girl at work. I think English is her second language or possibly her third. She has a lisp and does crazy things with her hair. Her name is Deletia. I think it’s the most beautiful name in the world. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHere’s a secret. I wrote that down on a Post-it once—You have the most beautiful name in the world—and carried it stuck to the inside of a folder. All day I was hideously excited as I sat at my desk, roamed the corridors. Then I forgot about the note for a week. When I saw it again the words looked strange, like someone else had written them. Before throwing it away, I used the sticky edge to clean out the crevices of my keyboard. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e≈ \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI have two older brothers, whom I despise, and a younger sister, whom I adore. My brothers have always been exceedingly nice to me, including me in all manner of conversation and sport, yet I can’t stand the sight of them. At least individually. When the three of us sons are together, my ill will dissipates somewhat, into a tan-colored mist of indifference. My sister, Grace, on the other hand, speaks sharply to me and expects me to do things like pick up her dry cleaning and find her cheap tickets to Cancún on the internet. I mean the real Cancún, not some virtual \u003ci\u003eplaya\u003c\/i\u003e. But she’s the baby of the family and I’m happy to oblige. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWe children all live in the city, and gatherings are complicated for me. If it’s me, my eldest brother, Dan, and my sister, I get argumentative the second I walk in, under the impression that he is picking on her, being the bully that he undoubtedly is. If it’s me, my other brother, and my sister, I’ll tell jokes nonstop, poorly thought-out jokes that hinge on antiquated wordplay. I’m trying to defuse the tension caused by the fact that this brother is a withholding control freak. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn fact, my brothers are exceedingly nice to my sister as well, and she does not speak sharply to them or expect them to run her errands. Sometimes I think she respects them because they make money and I don’t, really. Or because their wives are elegant, capable women, and Tabby is something of an eccentric and a bit of a slob. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOnce I was on a bus going crosstown and saw Grace and my brothers walking out of a restaurant, laughing. They looked gloriously happy. Dan posted a picture of their lunch on Facebook. I don’t know what he was thinking.Pulitzer Prize finalist","brand":"Random House","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48232926052581,"sku":"NP9780812998993","price":28.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780812998993.jpg?v=1767721526","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/an-oral-history-of-atlantis-isbn-9780812998993","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}