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Witty and surprising, George Singleton’s latest short fiction collection welcomes both new and longtime readers with his signature offbeat humor, perfect for fans of George Saunders and Jill McCorkle
A seasoned house flipper befriends a club of hook-handed, shuffleboard-playing war veterans to deter a potential stalker. A couple in a middle-of-nowhere ghost town quells their boredom by luring would-be robbers to their house. A former yearbook photographer enacts revenge upon the students who got him fired. And a fallen-from-grace comedian pays a visit to the hypnotist looking to curb his less-desirable habits, then finds the treatment a bit too effective for his liking.
Crafted with Singleton’s distinctive mix of satire and charm, the stories in Wounded Boarders take readers from binocular-clad boyhood to the inbox of an adjunct professor and a host of others at the end of their rope. Undeniably Southern in nature, these stories capture the absurdity of the mundane, offering a glimpse into the routines and recollections of imperfect people whose lives are stranger than fiction.
PRAISE FOR THE CURIOUS LIVES OF NONPROFIT MARTYRS:
“Legendary South Carolina absurdist Singleton weighs in with another rollicking collection. … A Southern original adds to his gallery of Southern originals.” —Kirkus starred review
“Singleton delivers an offbeat collection filled with Southern eccentrics. … Singleton lights up the colorful and odd situations with wit and verve. Southern fiction fans will have a blast.” —Publishers Weekly
“A delightful, occasionally disturbing and unapologetically honest exploration of Southern life … There’s a beautiful brokenness driving these characters toward their distinctive causes that’s born from the most basic of compulsions — the human need to belong.” —Atlanta Journal-Constitution
“Please know that it is against my nature to fling the word ‘genius’ around like a sandlot football. I’ve used it maybe five times, and in all of those instances I applied it to composers, partly because I don’t understand how they do what they do. Being a fiction writer, I understand all too well how we do what we do. But George Singleton is a genius, because he repeatedly manages to make me laugh, often uproariously, when my first impulse is to cry. How he accomplishes this feat is as mysterious to me as the twelve-tone music of, say, Arnold Schoenberg. But I know this: contemporary American literature—and I daresay the country itself—would be more vibrant if we had more writers like him. George Singleton is something perhaps even rarer than a genius. He’s a treasure.” —Steve Yarbrough, author of Stay Gone Days
George Singleton has published ten collections of stories, two novels, a book of writing advice, and a collection of essays. Over 250 of his stories have appeared in the Atlantic Monthly, Harper’s, Esquire, Story, One Story, Playboy, and elsewhere. Non-fiction in Garden and Gun, Oxford American, Best Food Writing, and elsewhere. He’s received a Pushcart Prize, and a Guggenheim fellowship. His collection The Curious Lives of Nonprofit Martyrs was named a Top 100 Book of 2023 by Kirkus Reviews. A member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers, he lives in Spartanburg, South Carolina.