Superworse: A Remix of Superbad: Stories and Pieces

(Paperback)

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Description

"Greenman's mind may contain 'a Russian short story writer, a slap-stick gag writer, an art critic, a literary critic, a cultural commentator, a cowboy, a satirist, a scientist . . . a surrealist, a nut, and genius . . . a child prodigy . . . and a poet' (Susan Minot). The original McSweeney's, Superbad comprised more than two dozen pieces in various genres from serious fiction to post-modern satire to lyric. This Soft Skull edition will reconceive Superbad with an eye toward its overall architecture, emphasizing that the individual pieces are intricately related to one another, as movements in a symphony or gears in a clockwork. Onge, the fictitious editor who introduced Superbad, will oversee the paperback, allowing a clear set of themes and characters to emerge from the welter of styles. The book is tightly constructed, with a mirror-image arrangement and many characters, not all human, threaded throughout. Rather than conceiving this project simply as a paperback edition, the release is more like a remix, in the fashion of popular music. Superbad was a humor collection in the finest McSweeney's tradition; Superworse is a novel in the spirit of Borges and Barthelme.

Reviews

"Just when you think Greenman has thoroughly excavated all available humor, he surprises with a snipe from an unforeseen direction."

Author Bio

Ben Greenman is a New York Times-bestselling author who has written both fiction and nonfiction. He is the author of several acclaimed works of fiction, including the novel The Slippage and the short-story collections What He's Poised to Do and Superbad. He is the co-author of the bestselling Mo' Meta Blues with Questlove, the bestselling I Am Brian Wilson with Brian Wilson, Brothas Be, Yo Like George, Ain't That Funkin' Kinda Hard on You with George Clinton, and more. His fiction, essays, and journalism have appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Paris Review, Zoetrope- All Story, McSweeney's, and elsewhere, and have been widely anthologized. His most recent book is Dig If You Will The Picture, a meditation on the life and career of Prince.