Upstate - by Ben Tanzer (Paperback)

About the Book

Previously published as The New York stories.

Book Synopsis

Featuring dark character studies of childhood, middle age, and (lack of) grace under pressure, these stories are among the best work of Tanzer's career, and voracious fans of his writing will surely be pleased and satisfied to have these small masterpieces collected together into one easy-to-read volume. So take a stool at Thirsty's, order another Yuengling, and be prepared to be transported into the rusted heart and blackened soul of the American small-town, as one of our nation's best contemporary authors takes us on a remarkable journey to a place full of love and lust and gin and sin.

Previously published as The New York Stories, this classic collection has been revised and edited, and includes a new introduction by Tortoise Books publisher Gerald Brennan.

Review Quotes

"Ben Tanzer's stories are both familiar and surprising, a scarf and a knife. Stories full of people we know, love. People we don't want to know, don't want to love. Stories full of desire and sadness and almost. Stories over beers and tequila, stories inside sex and storms. Ben! He is one of my favorites for all sorts of reasons and one of those reasons is yes and another is hell yes." - Leesa Cross-Smith, author of So We Can Glow and Whiskey & Ribbons

"With great humor and the natural voice of your closest confidant, Ben Tanzer brings us stories set in our shared hometown of Binghamton, NY. With tenderness and heart, Ben brings us real people and their poignant, messy struggles, reminding us of the folly of our youth and the beauty in even our most mundane histories. Though my family left when I was small for the big city, Tanzer has given this reader the gift of a sliding door here, and I think you'll feel the same way, wherever you're from." - Elizabeth Crane, author of We Only Know So Much and The History of Great Things

"Long before the floodwaters start to build in Ben Tanzer's Upstate, we sense their looming presence-the characters themselves drift and swirl about this dying town, trapped in the eddies of past indiscretion, borne along by longings and regrets, snagged upon their betrayals and petty resentments. Yet while one might be tempted to write them off as premature ghosts, here they live on, and like Carver's, these characters call to us from across the barstool, the pool table, the couch, the car seat. And by the end, Tanzer has made a convincing case that a deluge of stories might be the very thing to save us." - Tim Horvath, author of Understories

"In his beautiful and deeply American Upstate, Ben Tanzer returns to the upstate place where it all began: childhood, adolescence, the buds of adulthood. Caterpillar guts ooze out on the pavement, as do restless hearts. 'Thirsty's still serves beer, the Susquehanna River still flows, and you are here by the window, watching, waiting, wondering how you got here at all.' Characters may come and go and circle back in the fictional town of Two Rivers, but through it all Tanzer's voice is a transporting constant: intimate, immediate, full of wisdom and grace. Spanning three masterful volumes, brimming with lust and longing, humor and heartbreak and a healthy helping of what-ifs, this collection is for anyone who has lived and loved or loved and lost or any whirling, churning combination of the three. In other words, it's for all of us." - Sara Lippmann, author of Doll Palace

"The millions of unseen things that happen inside the heart finally start to come clear in Ben Tanzer's Upstate. Everyone here-from the teenage girls to the grown men trying to sleep with them, from the guy in therapy to the therapist-is filled with a desire so painful it will make you ache. Come to Thirsty's and drink a Yuengling because it might be all there is. Ben Tanzer knows that what we love most is what destroys us and what makes us feel most alive. He's reached into our music collections and pulled out the soul and the funk and the loud guitars and set it to prose that pulls us all across the page. Be prepared to laugh and cry and be swept away." - Dave Newman, author of East Pittsburgh Downlow and Two Small Birds