I Thought My Father Was God: And Other True Tales from NPR's National Story Project

A powerful collection of true stories from everyday Americans, gathered by master storyteller Paul Auster.

When Paul Auster and NPR's Weekend All Things Considered introduced The National Story Project, the response was overwhelming. Letters, emails, and faxes poured in, with over 4,000 submissions in the first year alone. Everyone, it seemed, had a story to tell.

I Thought My Father Was God brings together 180 of these fascinating, personal accounts in a single, captivating volume. Contributors from all walks of life across 42 states share vivid narratives that blend the ordinary and extraordinary. From humorous anecdotes to poignant reflections on love and loss, this collection showcases the rich tapestry of American experiences.

Hilarious blunders, wrenching coincidences, brushes with death, miraculous encounters, improbable ironies, premonitions, sorrows, pains, and dreams - I Thought My Father Was God encompasses them all. A testament to the powerful role storytelling plays in our lives, this singular anthology offers a rare glimpse into the American soul, celebrating the diversity, resilience, and shared humanity that bind us together.

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I Thought My Father Was God: And Other True Tales from NPR's National Story Project

A powerful collection of true stories from everyday Americans, gathered by master storyteller Paul Auster.

When Paul Auster and NPR's Weekend All Things Considered introduced The National Story Project, the response was overwhelming. Letters, emails, and faxes poured in, with over 4,000 submissions in the first year alone. Everyone, it seemed, had a story to tell.

I Thought My Father Was God brings together 180 of these fascinating, personal accounts in a single, captivating volume. Contributors from all walks of life across 42 states share vivid narratives that blend the ordinary and extraordinary. From humorous anecdotes to poignant reflections on love and loss, this collection showcases the rich tapestry of American experiences.

Hilarious blunders, wrenching coincidences, brushes with death, miraculous encounters, improbable ironies, premonitions, sorrows, pains, and dreams - I Thought My Father Was God encompasses them all. A testament to the powerful role storytelling plays in our lives, this singular anthology offers a rare glimpse into the American soul, celebrating the diversity, resilience, and shared humanity that bind us together.

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I Thought My Father Was God: And Other True Tales from NPR's National Story Project

I Thought My Father Was God: And Other True Tales from NPR's National Story Project

I Thought My Father Was God: And Other True Tales from NPR's National Story Project

I Thought My Father Was God: And Other True Tales from NPR's National Story Project

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Overview

A powerful collection of true stories from everyday Americans, gathered by master storyteller Paul Auster.

When Paul Auster and NPR's Weekend All Things Considered introduced The National Story Project, the response was overwhelming. Letters, emails, and faxes poured in, with over 4,000 submissions in the first year alone. Everyone, it seemed, had a story to tell.

I Thought My Father Was God brings together 180 of these fascinating, personal accounts in a single, captivating volume. Contributors from all walks of life across 42 states share vivid narratives that blend the ordinary and extraordinary. From humorous anecdotes to poignant reflections on love and loss, this collection showcases the rich tapestry of American experiences.

Hilarious blunders, wrenching coincidences, brushes with death, miraculous encounters, improbable ironies, premonitions, sorrows, pains, and dreams - I Thought My Father Was God encompasses them all. A testament to the powerful role storytelling plays in our lives, this singular anthology offers a rare glimpse into the American soul, celebrating the diversity, resilience, and shared humanity that bind us together.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781466828995
Publisher: Holt, Henry & Company, Inc.
Publication date: 09/07/2002
Sold by: Macmillan
Format: eBook
Pages: 416
File size: 2 MB

About the Author

About The Author

Paul Auster was the bestselling author of 4 3 2 1, Bloodbath Nation, Baumgartner, The Book of Illusions, and The New York Trilogy, among many other works. In 2006 he was awarded the Prince of Asturias Prize for Literature. Among his other honors are the Prix Médicis Étranger for Leviathan, the Independent Spirit Award for the screenplay of Smoke, and the Premio Napoli for Sunset Park. In 2012, he was the first recipient of the NYC Literary Honors in the category of fiction. He was also a finalist for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award (The Book of Illusions), the PEN/Faulkner Award (The Music of Chance), the Edgar Award (City of Glass), and the Man Booker Prize (4 3 2 1). Auster was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and a Commandeur de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. His work has been translated into more than forty languages. He died at age seventy-seven in 2024.

Hometown:

Brooklyn, New York

Date of Birth:

February 3, 1947

Place of Birth:

Newark, New Jersey

Education:

B.A., M.A., Columbia University, 1970

Read an Excerpt

I told the listeners that I was looking for stories. The stories had to be true, and they had to be short, but there would be no restrictions as to subject matter or style. What interested me most, I said, were stories that defied our expectations of the world, anecdotes that revealed the mysterious and unknowable forces at work in our lives, in our family histories, in our minds and bodies, in our souls . . . I was hoping to put together an archive of facts, a museum of American reality.

More than ever, I have come to appreciate how deeply and passionately most of us live within ourselves. Our attachments are ferocious. Our loves overwhelm us, define us, obliterate the boundaries between ourselves and others. —from the Prologue

So there was Mr. Bernhauser yelling at us to get the hell out of his tree, and my father asked him what the problem was. Mr. Bernhauser took a deep breath and launched into a diatribe about thieving kids, breakers of rules, takers of fruit, and monsters in general. I guess my father had had enough, for the next thing he did was shout at Mr. Bernhauser and tell him to drop dead. Mr. Bernhauser stopped screaming, looked at my father, turned bright red, then purple, grabbed his chest, turned gray, and slowly folded to the ground. I thought my father was God. That he could yell at a miserable old man and make him die on command was beyond my comprehension. —Robert Winnie Bonners Ferry, Idaho

Table of Contents

Introduction

ANIMALS
"The Chicken," Linda Elegant
"Rascal," Yale Huffman
"The Yellow Butterfly," Simonette Jackson
"Python," Judith Beth Cohen
"Pooh," Patricia Lambert
"New York Stray," Edith S. Marks
"Pork Chop," Eric Wynn
"B," Suzanne Stroh
"Two Loves," Will Coffey
"Rabbit Story," Barry Foy
"Carolina," Kelly O'Neill
"Andy and the Snake," Ron Fabian
"Blue Skies," Corki Stewart
"Exposure," Michael Oppenheimer
"Vertigo," Janet Schmidt Zupan

OBJECTS
"Star and Chain," Steve Lacheen
"Radio Gypsy," Bill Calm
"A Bicycle Story," Edith Riemer
"Grandmother's China," Kristine Lundquist
"The Bass," Mark Snyder
"Mother's Watch," Raymond Barry
"Case Closed," Jerry Hoke
"The Photo," Beverly Peterson
"MS. Found in an Attic," Marcus Rosenbaum
"Tempo Primo," Lauren Shapiro
"A Lesson Not Learned," Carol Sherman-Jones
"A Family Christmas," Don Graves
"My Rocking Chair," Dick Bain
"The Unicycle," Gordon Lee Stelter
"Moccasins," Fr. Keith Clark
"The Striped Pen," Robert M. Rock
"The Doll," Robert McGee
"The Videotape," Marie Johnson
"The Purse," Barbara Hudins20
"A Gift of Gold," John Keith

FAMILIES
"Rainout," Stan Benkoski
"Isolation," Lucy Hayden
"Connections," Miriam Rosenzweig
"The Wednesday Before Christmas," Jack Fear
"How My Father Lost His Job," Fred Muratori
"Danny Kowalski," Charlie Peters
"Revenge'" Eric Brotman
"Chris," Edwina Portelle Romero
"Put Your Little Foot," Anna Thorson
"Aunt Myrtle," Laura Braughton Waters
"American Odyssey," Jane Adams
"A Plate of Peas," Rick Beyer
"Wash Guilt," Heather Atwood
"Double Sadness," Martha Russell Hsu
"A Picture of Life," Jeanine Mankins
"Margie," Christine Kravetz
"One Thousand Dollars," I.Z.
"Taking Leave," Joe Miceli
"Act of Memory," Mary Grace Dembeck

SLAPSTICK
"Bi-Coastal," Beth Kivel
"A Felt Fedora," Joan Wilkins Stone
"Man vs. Coat," Mel Singer
"That's Entertainment," Nancy Wilson
"Riding With Andy," Jim Furlong
"Sophisticated Lady," Joan Vanden Heuvel
ard"My First Day in Priest Clothes," Eugene O'Brien
"Jewish Cowboy," Jennifer Pye
"How to Win Friends and Influence People," Jerry Yellin
"Your Father Has the Hay Fever," Tony Powell
"Lee Ann and Holly Ann," Holly A. Heffelbower
"Why I am Anti-Fur," Freddie Levin
"Airport Story," Randy Welch
"Tears and Flapdoodle," Alice Owens-Johnson
"The Club Car," John Flannelly
"Bronx Cheer," Joe Rizzo
"One Day in Higley," Carl Brooksby

STRANGERS
"Dancing on Seventy-fourth Street," Catherine Austin Alexander
"A Conversation with Bill," John Brawley
"Greyhounding," Beth Twiggar Goff
"A Little Story About New York, Dana T. Payne
"My Mistake," Ludlow Perry
"No Forwarding Address," Josh Dorman
"The New Girl," Marc Mitchell
"The Iceman of Market Street," R.C. Van Kooy
"Me and the Babe," Saul Isler
"Lives of the Poets," Clayton Eshleman
"Land of the Lost," Erica Hagen
"Rainbow," Katie Letcher Lyle
"Rescued by God," Mary Ann Garrett
"My Story," Rachel Watson
"Small World," Paul K. Humiston
"Christmas Morning," 1949, Sylvia Seymour Akin
"Brooklyn Roberts," Adolph Lopez
"$1,380 Per Night," Double Occupancy, Bruce Edward Hall
"A Shot in the Light," Lion Goodman
"Snow", Juliana C. Nash

WAR
"The Fastest Man in the Union Army," Michael Kuretich
"Christmas 1862," Grace Sale Wilson
"Mount Grappa," Mary Parsons Burkett
"Savenay," Harold Tapper
"Fifty Years Later," Gisela Cloos Evitt
"He Was the Same Age as My Sister," Mieke C. Malandra
"Betting on Uncle Louie," Jeanne W. Halpern
"The Ten-Goal Player," Paul Ebeltoft
"The Last Hand," Bill Helmantoler
"August 1945," Robert C. North and Dorothy North
"One Autumn Afternoon," Willa Parks Ward
"I Thought My Father Was God," Robert Winnie
"The Celebration," Reginald Thayer
"Christmas 1945," Lloyd Hustvedt
"A Trunk Full of Memories," Morton N. Cohen
"A Walk in the Sun," Donald Zucker
"A Shot in the Dark," David Ayres
"Confessions of a Mouseketeer," Doreen Tracey
"Forever," Maria Barcelona
"Utah, 1975", Steve Hale

LOVE
"What if?," Theodore Lustig
"The Mysteries of Tortellini," Kristina Streeter
"An Involuntary Assistant," C.W. Schmitt
"The Plot," Bev Ford
"Mathematical Aphrodisiac," Alex Galt
"Table for Two," Lori Peikoff
"Suzy's Choosy," Suzanne Druehl
"Top Button," Earl Roberts
"Lace Gloves," Karen Cycon Dermody
"Susan's Greetings," Susan Sprague
"Edith," Bill Froke
"Souls Fly Away," Laura McHugh
"Awaiting Delivery," John Wiley
"The Day Paul and I Flew the Kite," Ann Davis
"A Lesson in Love," Alvin Rosser
"Ballerina," Nicolas Wieder
"The Fortune Cookie," Sharli Land-Polanco

DEATH
"Ashes," Sara Wilson
"Harrisburg, Randee Rosenfeld
"Something to Think About," P. Rohmann
"Good Night," Ellise Rossen
"Charlie the Tree Killer," Frank Young
"Dead Man's Bluff," Joel Einschlag
"My Best Friend," Olga Hardman
"I Didn't Know," Linda Marine
"Cardiac Arrests," Sherwin Waldman
"Grandmother's Funeral," Martha Duncan
"High Street," Judith Englander
"A Failed Execution," David Anderson
"The Ghost," G.A. Gonzalez
"Heart Surgery," Dr. G.
"The Crying Place," Tim Gibson
"Lee," Jodi Walters
"South Dakota," Nancy Peavy
"Connecting with Phil," Tom Sellew
"The Letter," Brian F. McGee
"Dress Rehearsal," Ellen Powell
"The Anonymous Deciding Factor," Hollie Caldwell Campanella

DREAMS
"4:05 A.M.," Matthew Menary
"In the Middle of the Night," Steve Harper
"Blood," James Sharpsteen
"The Interpretation of Dreams," V. Ferguson-Stewart
"Half-Ball," Jack Edmonston
"Friday Night," Steve Hodgman
"Farrell", Stew Schneider
"Jill", Kara Husson b
"D-Day," Richard R. Rosman
"The Wall," Vicky Johnson
"Heaven," Grace Fichtelberg
"My Father's Dream," Mary McCallum
"Parallel Lives," Timothy Ackerman
"Anna May," Jeff Raper
"Long Time Gone," Lynn Duvall

MEDITATIONS
"Sewing Lessons," Donna M. Bronner
"Sunday Drive," Bob Ayers
"Mayonnaise Sandwiches," Thomas Corrado
"Seaside," Tanya Collins
"After a Long Winter," Eileen O' Hara
"Martini With a Twist," Dede Ryan
"Nowhere," John Howze
"Where in the World is Era Rose Rodosta?," Carolyn Brasher
"Peter," Mark Gover
"At Sixes and Sevens," Sandra Waller
"Reflections on a Hubcap," Roger Brinkerhoff
"Homeless in Prescott," Arizona, B.C.
"Being There," Tim Clancy
"An Average Sadness," Ameni Rozsa

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