A masterful collection of short stories exposing the seamy undercurrents of small-town American life from Charles Jackson, celebrated author of The Lost Weekend. A selection of Jackson’s finest tales, The Sunnier Side and Other Stories explores the trials of adolescence in America during the tumultuous years of the early twentieth century. Set in the town of Arcadia in upstate New York, the stories in this collection address the unspoken issues—homosexuality, masturbation, alcoholism, to name a few—lurking just beneath the surface of the small-town ideal. The Sunnier Side showcases Jackson at the height of his storytelling powers, reaffirming his reputation as a boundary-pushing, irreverent writer years ahead of his time. “Charles Jackson is a writer of unusual power.” — Chicago Tribune “In their compassionate but merciless self-examination, their almost unbearable integrity, their penetrating (unarty) artfulness, [Jackson's stories] force the reader back upon himself, make him reflect upon his own motivations, his own worth.” — The New York Times Book Review “Jackson is a writer of lasting inventiveness and power.” — Saturday Review “It is not possible to squeeze Mr. Jackson's technique into any one school. First and foremost he is a creator of his own world. In his best stories he catches the tune of all our existence and hums it for us with the casual colloquially relaxed precision characteristic of his style.” — New York Herald Tribune Book Review Charles Jackson was born in 1903 and raised in the township of Arcadia, New York, in the Finger Lakes region, where much of his fiction is set. After a youth marred by tuberculosis and alcoholism, Jackson achieved international fame with his first novel, The Lost Weekend (1944), which was adapted into a classic movie by Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett. Over the next nine years, Jackson published two more novels and two story collections, while continuing to struggle with alcohol and drug addiction. In 1967, after a fourteen-year silence, he returned to the best-seller lists with a novel about a nymphomaniac, A Second-Hand Life , but the following year he died of an overdose at the Hotel Chelsea in Manhattan.  Blake Bailey is the author of Farther & Wilder: The Lost Weekends and Literary Dreams of Charles Jackson. His other books include A Tragic Honesty: The Life and Work of Richard Yates, finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, and Cheever: A Life, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Francis Parkman Prize, and finalist for the Pulitzer and James Tait Black Memorial Prize. He edited a two-volume edition of Cheever’s work for The Library of America, and in 2010 received an Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He lives in Virginia with his wife and daughter. Excerpted from 'The Sunnier Side' 37 East 72nd street New York, NY September 20, 1949 Dear Charles Jackson: Thank you so much for writing “Tenting Tonight” which I have just read in the new Good Housekeeping. It is a real pleasure to run across such a clean & delightful short story. No drinking, no sex, no murder—-& no personality problem. Good for both youngsters & grown--ups. It’s nice to know that you can write about the sunnier side of life, life as it is & should be. It was especially interesting to me as I spent several summers in Arcadia NY when I was a girl & was often at Parsons Point—-once at the very cottage around which your story centers! Of course all that now seems “far away & long ago” as I haven’t been back since I was twenty & have long since lost track of Arcadia & old friends there. But they were golden summers as I remember them, with all our lives before us! I am older than you by ten years I should think. I am of the era of Faith Goldsmith, Eudora Detterson & Harriet Newton but I remember you as a kid. A very cute youngster you were too, with those big brown eyes always wide open with the wonder of it all & probably just seeing right through everything! I find all your books interesting & well written, altho most sophisticated compared to the standards of Arcadia, but I suppose true of the world today. Still it sometimes does seem a pity that a man with your gifts should dwell so much on the morbid & sordid, neglecting the sunnier side aforementioned & the wholesome. Do you choose such subject matter on purpose? Life is often unpleasant enough without having to come across the  unpleasant in books. Speaking for myself, I read books for pleasure & for their relation to life, which is why I loved “Tenting Tonight.” You surely may be proud of such a charming short story. I wish you great success & will always watch for your work with the greatest of interest. Sincerely, (Miss) Dorothy Brenner Orford, New Hampshire September 27, 1949 Dear Miss Brenner: Thank you for your nice letter. I’d better answer it now and get rid of it, and so be able to get back to my work. Like a souveni