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FORTUNE SMILES: STORIES
By: Adam Johnson
Random House
August 2015
On Sale: August 18, 2015
ISBN: 0812997476
EAN: 9780812997477
Kindle: B00RKO6N14
Hardcover / e-Book
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Fiction
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for his acclaimed novel about North Korea, The Orphan Masterβs Son, Adam Johnson is one of Americaβs most provocative and powerful authors. Critics have compared him to Kurt Vonnegut, David Mitchell, and George Saunders, but Johnsonβs new book will only further his reputation as one of our most original writers. Subtly surreal, darkly comic, both hilarious and heartbreaking, Fortune Smiles is a major collection of stories that gives voice to the perspectives we donβt often hear, while offering something rare in fiction: a new way of looking at the world. In six masterly stories, Johnson delves deep into love and loss, natural disasters, the influence of technology, and how the political shapes the personal. βNirvana,β which won the prestigious Sunday Times short story prize, portrays a programmer whose wife has a rare disease finding solace in a digital simulacrum of the president of the United States. In βHurricanes Anonymousββfirst included in the Best American Short Stories anthologyβa young man searches for the mother of his son in a Louisiana devastated by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. βGeorge Orwell Was a Friend of Mineβ follows a former warden of a Stasi prison in East Germany who vehemently denies his past, even as pieces of it are delivered in packages to his door. And in the unforgettable title story, Johnson returns to his signature subject, North Korea, depicting two defectors from Pyongyang who are trying to adapt to their new lives in Seoul, while one cannot forget the woman he left behind. Unnerving, riveting, and written with a timeless quality, these stories confirm Johnson as one of Americaβs greatest writers and an indispensable guide to our new century.
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