The incomparable Jonathan Lethem returns with nine brilliant stories that prove he is a master of the short form as well as the novel.      Jonathan Lethem stretches new literary muscles in this scintillating new collection of stories. Some of these tales—such as "Pending Vegan," which wonderfully captures a parental ache and anguish during a family visit to an aquatic theme park—are, in Lethem's words, "obedient (at least outwardly) to realism." Others, like "The Dreaming Jaw, The Salivating Ear,", which deftly and hilariously captures the solipsism of blog culture, feature "the uncanny and surreal elements that still sometimes erupt in my short stories."      The tension between these two approaches, and the way they inform each other, increase the reader's surprise and delight as one realizes how cleverly Lethem is playing with form. Devoted fans of Lethem will recognize familiar themes and tropes—the anxiety of influence pushed to reduction ad absurdum in "The King of Sentences"; a hapless outsider trying to summon up bravado in "The Porn Critic;" characters from the comics stranded on a desert island; the necessity and the impossibility of action against authority in "Procedure in Plain Air." As always, Lethem's work, humor, and poignancy work in harmony; people strive desperately for connection through words and often misdirect deeds; and the sentences are glorious. Read by a Full Cast: “Lucky Alan”…read by Mark Deakins “The King of Sentences”…read by David Wain “Traveler Home”…read by Mark Deakins “Procedure in Plain Air”…read by Amy Landecker “Their Back Pages”…read by Isaac Butler “The Porn Critic”…read by Bruce Wagner “The Empty Room”…read by Michael Goldstrom “The Dreaming Jaw, The Salivating Ear”…read by Jonathan Lethem “Pending Vegan”…read by Mark Deakins "Lethem is, of course, a king of sentences.... Lethem works in an interesting literary space between realism and absurdism, modernism and postmodernism, satire and a particular brand of DeLillo-inspired darkness.... His talent is large and, as these stories demonstrate, his eye is as sharp as ever." - New York Times Book Review  “Jonathan Lethem’s imagination seemingly knows no bounds.... Comparisons might be drawn to writers ranging from Jorge Luis Borges and Haruki Murakami to Margaret Atwood and J.D. Salinger.”  -- Chicago Tribune "Rewards await the reader who commits to this slim volume.... Lucky Alan is a beguiling addition to a shelf full of uniquely inventive books by a master of genres with a legitimate claim to the much-contested throne." -- The Miami Herald “[T]ypically odd, funny and easy to love…. [A] pleasing schizophrenia and a remarkable variety in affect and ambition within one collection.”   -- LA Times “[A] great introduction to the sometimes heartbreaking, often surreal world of Jonathan Lethem…" -- NPR "Mr. Lethem is a a nimble and resourceful writer." -- Michiko Kakutani, New York Times From the Hardcover edition. Jonathan Lethem is the New York Times bestselling author of nine novels, including Dissident Gardens, Chronic City, The Fortress of Solitude, and Motherless Brooklyn, and of the essay collection The Ecstasy of Influence, which was a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist. A recipient of the MacArthur Fellowship and winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction, Lethem’s work has appeared in The New Yorker, Harper’s Magazine, Rolling Stone, Esquire, and The New York Times, among other publications. From the Hardcover edition. Lucky Alan In the months after I’d auditioned for him, I would run into the legendary theater director Sigismund Blondy at the movies, near-empty Thursday matinees of indifferent first-run films-- North Country , Wedding Crashers --in the decaying venues of the Upper East Side, where we both lived: the Crown, the Clearview, the Gemini; big rooms chopped into asymmetric halves or quartered through the balcony. Blondy saw a movie every afternoon, he said, and could provide scrupulous evaluations of any title you’d ever think to mention--largely dismissals, though I do recall his solemn approval of A Sound of Thunder , a time-travel film with a Ben Kingsley performance he’d liked. I’d see Blondy when the lights came up--alone, red scarf and pale elegant coat unfurled on the seat beside him, long legs crossed--unashamed, already hailing me if he spotted me first. Blondy dressed in dun and pastel colors, wore corduroys or a dancer’s Indian pants; in winter he had holes in his knitted gloves, in summer a cheesy Panama hat. He towered, moved softly and suddenly, usually vanished at any risk of being introduced. Soon I’d scan for Blondy whenever I entered a theater, alone or not. Often enough I’d find him. We never sat together. If this multiplex-haunting practice didn’t square with Blondy’s reputation as the venerated maestro of a certain form of miniaturist spectacle ( Krapp’s Last Tape in the elevator of a prewar office building, which mo