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A darkly funny and sometimes surreal debut collection about people grasping for meaning in a world that keeps slipping sideways.
The characters in TJ Fuller’s debut collection are desperate. They want their lives to mean something. They seek solace in work, validation and hope in others. And they fail. A lot. The songs they sing us hit home—and they hit hard—but not without humor, grace, and some straight-up weirdness.The title story allows the reader to explore, in a Choose Your Own Adventure style, how a young woman navigates the increasingly maddening choices she must make. "Damn Us All" follows a man trying on & swapping out deities like so many pairs of socks, seeking something—anything—which will finally make sense. A door-to-door salesman in "Doorbell Songs" starts snooping in places he doesn't belong and crossing lines he hadn't previously considered, just begging to be caught. "Slim Fit" sees what it would be like to actually live inside a jeans commercial.
At times speculative and/or surreal and/or funny-as-hell, these stories set in the Pacific Northwest feature as many Philip Seymour Hoffmans as you can imagine, even more dream versions of yourself, aging backyard wrestlers, homeless gamblers, and much more. Let TJ tell you some tales you won’t soon forget.
"In this whip-smart-alec collection of stories, TJ Fuller wields his singular brand of hilarity: bracing and playful, sudden glimpses of characters longing for connection—in relationships, in wrestling matches, in dead-ends jobs—people choosing their own adventures in an absurd world where the idea of choice might be the funniest bit of all.”
—Jess Walter, author of So Far Gone
"The stories in TJ Fuller's terrific debut collection, Some Stupid Glow, embody the divinity in the everyday, and the everyday in divinity. With a 'voice like sweatpants. Like a corduroy couch and the afternoon sun and small claims court television,' Fuller is the reluctant prophet of our times, rendering humanity and all its flaws onto the page with acuity, humor, and tenderness. His is a world in which 'dreams small talk like the rest of us,' characters are trapped in the jaws of late stage capitalism, and longing lies between 'microwave meals and thrift dishes.' These are more than masterfully crafted stories, these are transcendent little lifelines, rife with mercy—and nachos."
—Sara Lippmann, author of JERKS
"TJ Fuller officially had me with 'He has a voice like sweatpants,' but then when a four-year-old directs her father to, 'Chomp, you shit,' I knew this book was for me. Some Stupid Glow feels like a playground I got to run wild in, if said playground was slightly fucked up and, okay, kind of dangerous. I loved it and I’m going back in."
—Lindsay Hunter, author of Hot Springs Drive and Daddy's
Each character in this debut story collection is clinging to a dream. Set in the Pacific Northwest
(Fuller lives and teaches in Portland, Oregon), it starts off with “Close Calls,” a visceral account
of the dubious morality of an admissions counselor (i.e., salesperson) at a for-profit college that
is reminiscent of Joshua Ferris’ Then We Came to the End (2006). Aging backyard wrestlers are
heartbreaking and superbly depicted as they appear in several stories tracking how they keep
trying to break through to fame. Some stories step into the surreal, such as in the homeless
gambler chancing his way into parties and sometimes burgling in “Off the Grid” and the mall
security guard in “Heaven Has No Fluorescents” who sees everyone as a version of Philip
Seymour Hoffman. The title story is technically spectacular, a sort-of choose-your-own-adventure
story set in a bar. Fuller's prose is punchy, original, and lively, and his tales constantly shift the
ground beneath the reader’s feet. Each story is short, dense, and intriguing throughout this
consistently excellent, varied, and fascinating collection.
—Booklist
TJ Fuller lives in Portland, OR.
- Close Calls
- Bake Me Like One of Your Rough Puff Pastries
- So Far to Go
- To What Do I Cling and Think is Mine
- Some Stupid Glow
- Heaven Has No Fluorescents
- Damn Us All
- Hazards
- Awful Math
- Focus
- Doorbell Songs
- Piano Season
- Swelter
- Dizzy Llamas
- Dreams of Ribbons and Trophies
- Millions of Reasons
- Where’d You Go?
- If You Like to Watch
- Carl “The Monolith” Reinhardt
- Off the Grid
- Slim Fit
- What a Joy Divine