A Fictional History of the United States (with Huge Chunks Missing)

Cooper & Mansbach team with some of today’s most talented writers to vitalize American history.

“This is a ‘people’s history’ with tongue in cheek: delightfully funny, imaginative, but with a subtle undertone of seriousness. I enjoyed it immensely.” —Howard Zinn, author of A People’s History of the United States

History is distorted the moment it’s recorded—and in these politically dishonest times, challenging the stories we’re told is more important than ever. In this groundbreaking anthology of original fiction, a diverse group of America’s best writers takes on the task of creating counter-narratives to mainstream American history. Here are some of the moments and the people left out of the textbooks. Here is what else happened—on the margins of American life, and in between the lines of our history books.

A Fictional History of the United States with Huge Chunks Missing brings together an eclectic array of celebrated authors and cartoonists to create a patchwork, anecdotal history of this complicated country. From the Chinese discovery of America in 1426 to the new McCarthyism of a post–9/11 world, this collection recasts everything from the moon landing to the Lindbergh kidnapping, westward expansion to the sexual proclivities of Civil War officers. Riveting, inventive, and politically vital, this anthology picks up—and yanks on—America’s supposed commitment to seeking the truth . . . even if that truth is revealed in fiction.

Original stories & artwork by: Daniel Alarcon, Amy Bloom, Kate Bornstein, Alexander Chee, T Cooper, Keith Knight, Ron Kovic, Paul La Farge, Felicia Luna Lemus, Adam Mansbach, Valerie Miner, Tommy O’Malley, Neal Pollack, David Rees, Sarah Schulman, Darin Strauss, and Benjamin Weissman.

1101154757
A Fictional History of the United States (with Huge Chunks Missing)

Cooper & Mansbach team with some of today’s most talented writers to vitalize American history.

“This is a ‘people’s history’ with tongue in cheek: delightfully funny, imaginative, but with a subtle undertone of seriousness. I enjoyed it immensely.” —Howard Zinn, author of A People’s History of the United States

History is distorted the moment it’s recorded—and in these politically dishonest times, challenging the stories we’re told is more important than ever. In this groundbreaking anthology of original fiction, a diverse group of America’s best writers takes on the task of creating counter-narratives to mainstream American history. Here are some of the moments and the people left out of the textbooks. Here is what else happened—on the margins of American life, and in between the lines of our history books.

A Fictional History of the United States with Huge Chunks Missing brings together an eclectic array of celebrated authors and cartoonists to create a patchwork, anecdotal history of this complicated country. From the Chinese discovery of America in 1426 to the new McCarthyism of a post–9/11 world, this collection recasts everything from the moon landing to the Lindbergh kidnapping, westward expansion to the sexual proclivities of Civil War officers. Riveting, inventive, and politically vital, this anthology picks up—and yanks on—America’s supposed commitment to seeking the truth . . . even if that truth is revealed in fiction.

Original stories & artwork by: Daniel Alarcon, Amy Bloom, Kate Bornstein, Alexander Chee, T Cooper, Keith Knight, Ron Kovic, Paul La Farge, Felicia Luna Lemus, Adam Mansbach, Valerie Miner, Tommy O’Malley, Neal Pollack, David Rees, Sarah Schulman, Darin Strauss, and Benjamin Weissman.

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A Fictional History of the United States (with Huge Chunks Missing)

A Fictional History of the United States (with Huge Chunks Missing)

A Fictional History of the United States (with Huge Chunks Missing)

A Fictional History of the United States (with Huge Chunks Missing)

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Overview

Cooper & Mansbach team with some of today’s most talented writers to vitalize American history.

“This is a ‘people’s history’ with tongue in cheek: delightfully funny, imaginative, but with a subtle undertone of seriousness. I enjoyed it immensely.” —Howard Zinn, author of A People’s History of the United States

History is distorted the moment it’s recorded—and in these politically dishonest times, challenging the stories we’re told is more important than ever. In this groundbreaking anthology of original fiction, a diverse group of America’s best writers takes on the task of creating counter-narratives to mainstream American history. Here are some of the moments and the people left out of the textbooks. Here is what else happened—on the margins of American life, and in between the lines of our history books.

A Fictional History of the United States with Huge Chunks Missing brings together an eclectic array of celebrated authors and cartoonists to create a patchwork, anecdotal history of this complicated country. From the Chinese discovery of America in 1426 to the new McCarthyism of a post–9/11 world, this collection recasts everything from the moon landing to the Lindbergh kidnapping, westward expansion to the sexual proclivities of Civil War officers. Riveting, inventive, and politically vital, this anthology picks up—and yanks on—America’s supposed commitment to seeking the truth . . . even if that truth is revealed in fiction.

Original stories & artwork by: Daniel Alarcon, Amy Bloom, Kate Bornstein, Alexander Chee, T Cooper, Keith Knight, Ron Kovic, Paul La Farge, Felicia Luna Lemus, Adam Mansbach, Valerie Miner, Tommy O’Malley, Neal Pollack, David Rees, Sarah Schulman, Darin Strauss, and Benjamin Weissman.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781617752179
Publisher: Akashic Books, Ltd.
Publication date: 08/01/2006
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
Pages: 300
File size: 6 MB

About the Author

T Cooper is an author, television writer, journalist, and filmmaker whose groundbreaking work has been pushing boundaries both in print and on screen for twenty years. He currently serves as executive producer and writer on The Blacklist, and is the author of nine books, including two best-selling novels. Cooper’s feature documentary Man Made has screened at more than eighty film festivals worldwide, winning fourteen Best Documentary jury and audience awards—in addition to a Sundance Institute Grant (the film is currently available for streaming on Amazon Prime). Cooper is a professor of English and creative writing at Emory University, and one half of Holler Beach Productions.
Adam Mansbach is a novelist, screenwriter, humorist, and cultural critic (in addition to having built an obscene fake children's book empire). His books include Rage Is Back, the California Book Award–winning The End of the Jews, and the best sellers Angry Black White Boy and For This We Left Egypt?, cowritten with Dave Barry and Alan Zweibel. Mansbach was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award for his screenplay for the Netflix Original Barry, and is currently adapting his middle-grade novel Jake the Fake Keeps It Real for the Disney Channel. His work has appeared in the New Yorker, the New York Times Book Review, Esquire, and on National Public Radio's This American Life, the Moth, and All Things Considered.

Table of Contents

Introduction by T Cooper & Adam Mansbach

“The Discovery of America” by Paul La Farge (ca. 2000 BCE–present)

“Wampeshau” by Alexander Chee (1426)

“West” by Benjamin Weissman (1846)

“Dixie Belle: The Further Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” by Kate Bornstein (1865)

“The Waterbury” by David Rees (1884)

“A True and Faithful Account of Mr. Ota Benga the Pygmy, Written by M. Berman, Zookeeper” by Adam Mansbach (1905)

“April 9, 1924” by Amy Bloom (1924)

“The Story That Refuses to Die” by T Cooper (1932)

“Five and Dime Valentine” by Felicia Luna Lemus (1937)

“One More Old Hat” by Darin Strauss (1946)

“The Courage to Love” by Sarah Schulman (1955)

“The Recruiters” by Ron Kovic (1968)

“The Harlem Globetrotters” by Keith Knight (1971)

“The Ressurection Men” by Thomas O’Malley (1989)

“The New Century” by Neal Pollack (1998)

“Apprehensions” by Valerie Miner (2001)

“The Anodyne Dreams of Various Imbeciles” by Daniel Alarcón (2011)

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