Ebook193 pages6 hours
Everyone Wants to Be Ambassador to France: Stories
By Bryan Hurt
Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
4.5/5
()
About this ebook
“The fictional love child of Miranda July, George Saunders, and A.M. Homes . . . dark humor with just enough tenderness to make everything feel true.” ―Courtney Maum, author of I Am Having So Much Fun Here Without You
A seagull, a goat, and a teenage boy enter into a bizarre love triangle that leaves one of them dead and the other two changed forever. A grief-stricken astronaut quits NASA to paint pictures of the moon. An eighteenth-century British aristocrat adopts two teenage girls and absconds with them to France, determined to raise one of them to become his perfect wife. By turns humorous and heartbreaking, this debut collection offers weird and wonderful stories that illuminate the hidden truths of life.
“I have been a longtime fan of Bryan Hurt’s stories and what a joy to have them all together now in this book! They are a soup pot of the funniest dry sentences plus unusual facts that he unearthed from who knows where, and an unstated humanity tucked inside those facts, and a constant eye on the oddness of culture and the lilt of a well-placed phrase and a carrot. In our endlessly data-packed world, Hurt’s keen sparseness is a welcome addition to the bookshelves.” ―Aimee Bender, New York Times–bestselling author of The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake
“Bryan Hurt’s stories are like no one else’s. They are by turns hilarious, whimsical, arresting, and heartbreaking, but what makes them such a delight is the sly simplicity and off-handed charm of their telling.” ―T.C. Boyle, New York Times–bestselling author of The Tortilla Curtain
Winner of the Starcherone Prize for Innovative Fiction
A seagull, a goat, and a teenage boy enter into a bizarre love triangle that leaves one of them dead and the other two changed forever. A grief-stricken astronaut quits NASA to paint pictures of the moon. An eighteenth-century British aristocrat adopts two teenage girls and absconds with them to France, determined to raise one of them to become his perfect wife. By turns humorous and heartbreaking, this debut collection offers weird and wonderful stories that illuminate the hidden truths of life.
“I have been a longtime fan of Bryan Hurt’s stories and what a joy to have them all together now in this book! They are a soup pot of the funniest dry sentences plus unusual facts that he unearthed from who knows where, and an unstated humanity tucked inside those facts, and a constant eye on the oddness of culture and the lilt of a well-placed phrase and a carrot. In our endlessly data-packed world, Hurt’s keen sparseness is a welcome addition to the bookshelves.” ―Aimee Bender, New York Times–bestselling author of The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake
“Bryan Hurt’s stories are like no one else’s. They are by turns hilarious, whimsical, arresting, and heartbreaking, but what makes them such a delight is the sly simplicity and off-handed charm of their telling.” ―T.C. Boyle, New York Times–bestselling author of The Tortilla Curtain
Winner of the Starcherone Prize for Innovative Fiction
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Reviews for Everyone Wants to Be Ambassador to France
Rating: 4.374999875 out of 5 stars
4.5/5
4 ratings1 review
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5These stories - just vignettes, some of them - are chips of opal, multicolored and multifaceted, and you will find yourself carrying them around in your pockets for some time, or maybe noticing them glinting in nooks as you go about your life. Hurt's prose is deadpan - some of the writing is more like standup than prose - but also fantastical, coming at the emotions from unexpected angles and with sudden and delightful changes of direction. The central and longest piece, "Vicissitudes, CA", is a particular joy, while "Good With Words" and "Panic Attack" punch out of all proportion to their weight. I've a feeling that what Bryan Hurt does is extremely hard to do, which is why no-one else is doing it.
Book preview
Everyone Wants to Be Ambassador to France - Bryan Hurt
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