Stay Awake: Stories

(Paperback)

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From National Book Award finalist and author of Await Your Reply and You Remind Me of Me, a haunting new collection of stories that explore the ways that the mysterious and the sinister invade our everyday lives. NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The Washington Post . San Francisco Chronicle Before the critically acclaimed novels Await Your Reply and You Remind Me of Me, Dan Chaon made a name for himself as a renowned writer of dazzling short stories. Now, in Stay Awake, Chaon returns to that form for the first time since his masterly Among the Missing, a finalist for the National Book Award. In these haunting, suspenseful stories, lost, fragile, searching characters wander between ordinary life and a psychological shadowland. They have experienced intense love or loss, grief or loneliness, displacement or disconnection-and find themselves in unexpected, dire, and sometimes unfathomable situations. A father's life is upended by his son's night terrors-and disturbing memories of the first wife and child he abandoned; a foster child receives a call from the past and begins to remember his birth mother, whose actions were unthinkable; a divorced woman experiences her own dark version of "empty-nest syndrome"; a young widower is unnerved by the sudden, inexplicable appearances of messages and notes-on dollar bills, inside a magazine, stapled to the side of a tree; and a college dropout begins to suspect that there's something off, something sinister, in his late parents' house. Dan Chaon's stories feature scattered families, unfulfilled dreamers, anxious souls. Theyexist in a twilight realm-in a place by the window late at night when the streets are empty and the world appears to be quiet. But you are up, unable to sleep. So you stay awake. Praise for Stay Awake "Eerily beautiful . . . Chaon is the modern day John Cheever."-Boston Sunday Globe "Powerful and disturbing . . . The shocks in this collection are many."-The Washington Post "Chaon is able to create fully realized characters in mere pages. . . . This collection is further proof that Chaon is one of the best fiction writers working right now."-Omaha World-Herald "There are not many fiction writers who can do what Dan Chaon can do. . . . He is a literary force."-The Philadelphia Inquirer "Intense and suspenseful . . . a highly recommended work, not to be missed."-Library Journal (starred review) "Mesmerizing . . . gripping, masterful fiction."-The Plain Dealer "Superbly disquieting."-The New York Times Book Review Don't miss the exclusive conversation between Dan Chaon and Emma Straub at the back of the book.

Reviews

Eerily beautiful . . . [Chaon] is the modern day John Cheever.Boston Sunday Globe

Powerful and disturbing . . . The shocks in this collection are many.The Washington Post

Chaon is able to create fully realized characters in mere pages. . . . This collection is further proof that Chaon is one of the best fiction writers working right now.Omaha World-Herald

There are not many fiction writers who can do what Dan Chaon can do. . . . [He is] a literary force.The Philadelphia Inquirer

Intense and suspenseful . . . a highly recommended work, not to be missed.Library Journal (starred review)

Mesmerizing . . . gripping, masterful fiction.The Plain Dealer

Superbly disquieting.The New York Times Book Review

Author Bio

Dan Chaon is the acclaimed author of Among the Missing, which was a finalist for the National Book Award; You Remind Me of Me, which was named one of the best books of the year by The Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle, and Entertainment Weekly, among other publications; and Await Your Reply, which was a New York Times Notable Book and appeared on more than a dozen "Best of the Year" lists. Chaon's fiction has appeared in many journals and anthologies, including The Best American Short Stories, Pushcart Prize, and The O. Henry Prize Stories. He has been a finalist for the National Magazine Award in Fiction, and he was the recipient of the 2006 Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Chaon lives in Cleveland, Ohio, and teaches at Oberlin College, where he is the Pauline M. Delaney Professor of Creative Writing.