Music Through the Floor - by Eric Puchner (Paperback)

About the Book

From an acclaimed young Wallace Stegner Fellow and Pushcart Prize winner comes an exceptional first collection of stories about cultural outcasts attempting to navigate mainstream America.

Book Synopsis

From the author of the Oprah Book Club Pick Dream State, an extraordinary debut collection of nine unforgettable stories--strikingly original, fiercely funny, and quietly heartbreaking--portraying a group of misfits attempting to navigate mainstream America.

Writing from an impressive range of perspectives--men and women, children and adults, immigrants and tourists--Puchner deftly exposes the dark, tender undersides of his characters with arresting beauty and precision. Here are people fumbling for identity in a dehumanizing world, captured in moments that are hilarious, shocking, and transcendent, sometimes all at once. Unfailingly true, surprisingly moving, and impossible to forget, these stories make up an extraordinary and strikingly original collection.

Review Quotes

"An awe-inspiring debut that introduces readers to Puchner's great strength: the ability to chronicle the oddest of behaviors with a humane, unsparing voice."

-- Entertainment Weekly

"Riveting...In this melodious collection, Puchner proves to be uncannily in tune with the heartbreak and absurdity of domestic life."

-- Los Angeles Times

"Stories with style, heft, and real endings...Puchner puts the story back in short story."

-- San Francisco Chronicle Book Review

"This is the most auspicious debut of a short story collection that I have encountered in years....If there is any justice left in the world, this book will be widely read and celebrated."

-- Charles Baxter, author of The Feast of Love and Saul and Patsy

About the Author

Eric Puchner is the author of the story collection Music Through the Floor, a finalist for the New York Public Library's Young Lions Fiction Award; the novel Model Home, which was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award in Fiction; a second short story collection, Last Day on Earth; and a second novel, Dream State, an Oprah Book Club Pick. His short stories and personal essays have appeared in GQ, Granta, Tin House, Best American Short Stories, and more. He has received an Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He is an associate professor in the Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University and lives in Baltimore with his wife, the novelist Katharine Noel, and their two children.