Stay Awake - by Dan Chaon (Paperback)

About the Book

"Eerily beautiful . . . [Chaon] is the modern day John Cheever."--"Boston Sunday Globe." These haunting, suspenseful stories by acclaimed author Chaon feature scattered families, unfulfilled dreamers, anxious souls--lost, fragile, searching characters who wander between ordinary life and a psychological shadowland.

Book Synopsis

In these "superbly disquieting" (The New York Times Book Review) stories, lost, fragile, and searching characters wander between ordinary life and a psychological shadowland--from the award-winning author of Among the Missing.

"Powerful and disturbing."--The Washington Post
"Eerily beautiful."--Boston Sunday Globe
"[Chaon is] a literary force."--The Philadelphia Inquirer

A WASHINGTON POST AND SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR

Includes an exclusive conversation between Dan Chaon and Emma Straub

In twelve chilling stories, Dan Chaon introduces us to characters who have experienced intense love or loss, grief or loneliness, displacement or disconnection--and find themselves in unexpected, dire, and sometimes

A father's life is upended by his son's night terrors--and disturbing memories of the first wife and child he abandoned; a foster child receives a call from the past and begins to remember his birth mother, whose actions were unthinkable; a divorced woman experiences her own dark version of "empty-nest syndrome"; a young widower is unnerved by the sudden, inexplicable appearances of messages and notes--on dollar bills, inside a magazine, stapled to the side of a tree; and a college dropout begins to suspect that there's something off, something sinister, in his late parents' house.

The stories in Stay Awake feature scattered families, unfulfilled dreamers, anxious souls. They exist in a twilight realm--in a place by the window late at night when the streets are empty and the world appears to be quiet. But you are up, unable to sleep. So you stay awake.

Review Quotes

"Eerily beautiful . . . [Chaon] is the modern day John Cheever."-- Boston Sunday Globe

"Powerful and disturbing . . . The shocks in this collection are many."--The Washington Post

"Chaon is able to create fully realized characters in mere pages. . . . This collection is further proof that Chaon is one of the best fiction writers working right now."--Omaha World-Herald

"There are not many fiction writers who can do what Dan Chaon can do. . . . [He is] a literary force."--The Philadelphia Inquirer

"Intense and suspenseful . . . a highly recommended work, not to be missed."--Library Journal (starred review)

"Mesmerizing . . . gripping, masterful fiction."--The Plain Dealer

"Superbly disquieting."--The New York Times Book Review

"[Chaon] is a master of psychological tension. . . . These stories demand and capture your attention, and they don't let go even after you've finished reading them."--The Miami Herald

"An understated master of the form . . . Chaon has returned to the format with more quietly haunting stories of isolation and disconnection that stick with you like faded images from a disturbing dream."--Los Angeles Times

"[Chaon's] command of language, and his empathy with his characters, leave you not shaking your head in disbelief, but simply, gratifyingly, shaken."--The Wall Street Journal

"If Chaon's 2001 [book] Among the Missing, which was nominated for a National Book Award, contained some of the best fiction written in the past twenty years, Stay Awake is its darker, more unsettling cousin."--Esquire

"The remarkable variety and depth within the limits Chaon has set makes Stay Awake an irresistible collection for those who don't mind risking a few nightmares of their own."--The Columbus Dispatch

"Stay Awake is a profound collection of contemporary ghost stories in the tradition of M. R. James and Peter Straub's Houses Without Doors. The prose unveils an atmospheric menace animated by a grief grounded in the real world."--The Houston Chronicle

"Moving . . . Dan Chaon deliver[s] some of the best of what contemporary short fiction has to offer."--BookPage

"Chaon has a knack for the dramatic . . . but there's more than a beguiling premise animating these stories. His real quarry is the pervasive nature of trauma's aftermath."--Time Out New York

"Grounded in realism but leading to some fantastic places, Chaon's stories keep the reader guessing as they blur the lines between dreams and waking nightmares."--The Dallas Morning News

About the Author

Dan Chaon is the acclaimed author of Among the Missing, which was a finalist for the National Book Award; You Remind Me of Me, which was named one of the best books of the year by The Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle, and Entertainment Weekly, among other publications; and Await Your Reply, which was a New York Times Notable Book and appeared on more than a dozen "Best of the Year" lists. Chaon's fiction has appeared in many journals and anthologies, including The Best American Short Stories, Pushcart Prize, and The O. Henry Prize Stories. He has been a finalist for the National Magazine Award in Fiction, and he was the recipient of the 2006 Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Chaon lives in Cleveland, Ohio, and teaches at Oberlin College, where he is the Pauline M. Delaney Professor of Creative Writing.