Everything Abridged: Stories

(Paperback)

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Description

Framed as a reference work of humorous entries that offer trenchant social commentary, Everything Abridged presages a dark vision of the near future but tells jokes in the face of it: An intelligence agency operative uncovers a conspiracy to generate conspiracies and realizes his participation in the scheme. A Caribbean monarch meets four decades of American presidents and adjusts his countrys foreign policy accordingly. Experiment participants are asked to bring back a gun as quickly as possible. A copywriter on a space colony advertises a weapon with the potential to destroy his home during an intergalactic war.

Reviews

Dennard Dayles 17 speculative tales, girdled by a Devils Dictionary of 501 satiric definitions (literary, political, what-have-you), are by turns prescient of our anxious, conspiracy-fraught times and mournful of majestic worlds to come ruined by all too familiar hatreds. But the post-WWIII stand-up riffs Truly funny stuff. * Vulture *
Slyly defiant and blazingly imaginative, like the best modernist literature, Everything Abridged is a powerful celebration of flaw and failure. Its a book that revels in the timelessness of obsolescence and the freedom of powerlessness. Dayles a genre-shattering writer, whose wit and intellect never cease to entertain. This refreshingly original and powerfully funnycollection is a debut to remember. * Paul Beatty, New York Times bestselling author of The Sellout *
Written as a dictionary, with hilarious and so-blunt-they're-sharp definitions of terms like LimeWire, mouse utopia, and Perry, Tyler, Dayle's debut collection of stories is as likely to stun as it is to inform... incredibly entertaining and so damn illuminating. * Entertainment Weekly *
Everything Abridged: Stories by Dennard Dayle:Miscategorized. Calling this addictively book-shaped act of language subversion stories is like calling New York City buildings The nonstandard reference to all sorts of things it would have been disturbing to learn if you hadnt been laughing so hard Herald of a major new talentwhat more do you need to know Why are you still reading the cover and not the inside * Susan Choi, National Book Awardwinning author of Trust Exercise *
With Everything Abridged, Dennard Dayle innovates form as much as he does content, creating a work that is funny and familiar, no matter if hes writing about comedians from Mars, battery-powered humans, or radicalized comic book writers. Combining wit, humor, and an uncanny ability to get to the heart of what can both plague and save us, Dayle is a writer who isnt ruffling feathers, but plucking the bird bare, and I am grateful as hell for it. Without a doubt one of the best collections Ive ever read. * Mateo Askaripour, New York Times bestselling author of Black Buck *
This is one of the most useful books on the current American berserk that I have read in a long time. Kudos, Dennard. You said what we were all trying to say while we were very (angrily) chewing on our kale salads. * Gary Shteyngart, New York Times bestselling author of Super Sad True Love Story *
Funnier and smarter than pretty much everything else youve read in your lifetime. * Rivka Galchen, author of Atmospheric Disturbances and Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch *
Dayle has broken every rule to create a rollicking satire skewering American hypocrisy. A short story collection that artfully manages to be part dictionary and part joke book, Everything Abridged is a must-read for anyone who still believes humor is the fast track to truth. * Jessi Jezewska Stevens, author of The Exhibition of Persephone Q *

Author Bio

Dennard Dayle is a Jamaican American writer from New York City. He is a graduate of Princeton University and received his MFA from Columbia University. His short fiction has been published by Clarkesworld, Matchbook, the Hard Times, and McSweeneys Internet Tendency. Everything Abridged is his debut collection.