Everything Abridged: Stories
“Incredibly entertaining and so damn illuminating” (Entertainment Weekly), Dennard Dayle’s electrifying and wholly original collection of satirical stories create a bitingly funny portrait of American racism, capitalism, and politics.
A New Yorker Best Book of the Year
“Slyly defiant and blazingly imaginative . . . Dayle’s a genre-shattering writer, whose wit and intellect never cease to entertain.” —New York Times bestselling author Paul Beatty
Framed as a reference work of humorous “entries” that offer trenchant social commentary, Everything Abridged presages a dark vision of the near future but tells jokes in the face of it: An intelligence agency operative uncovers a conspiracy to generate conspiracies and realizes his participation in the scheme. A Caribbean monarch meets four decades of American presidents and adjusts his country’s foreign policy accordingly. Experiment participants are asked to bring back a gun as quickly as possible. A copywriter on a space colony advertises a weapon with the potential to destroy his home during an intergalactic war.
These and other linked stories, many of which feature a speculative bent—about being Black in America, law enforcement practices in an android society, Olympic speed walking, consumerism, nuclear war, and more—are interspersed with hilarious, one-line definitions for words ranging from abolition to zygote, creating a sharply humorous portrait of American inequality.
With his singular wit, sharp prose, and shrewd observations, Dennard Dayle captures the struggles his characters face to keep hold of their sanity in a society collapsing into chaos and absurdity.
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A New Yorker Best Book of the Year
“Slyly defiant and blazingly imaginative . . . Dayle’s a genre-shattering writer, whose wit and intellect never cease to entertain.” —New York Times bestselling author Paul Beatty
Framed as a reference work of humorous “entries” that offer trenchant social commentary, Everything Abridged presages a dark vision of the near future but tells jokes in the face of it: An intelligence agency operative uncovers a conspiracy to generate conspiracies and realizes his participation in the scheme. A Caribbean monarch meets four decades of American presidents and adjusts his country’s foreign policy accordingly. Experiment participants are asked to bring back a gun as quickly as possible. A copywriter on a space colony advertises a weapon with the potential to destroy his home during an intergalactic war.
These and other linked stories, many of which feature a speculative bent—about being Black in America, law enforcement practices in an android society, Olympic speed walking, consumerism, nuclear war, and more—are interspersed with hilarious, one-line definitions for words ranging from abolition to zygote, creating a sharply humorous portrait of American inequality.
With his singular wit, sharp prose, and shrewd observations, Dennard Dayle captures the struggles his characters face to keep hold of their sanity in a society collapsing into chaos and absurdity.
Everything Abridged: Stories
“Incredibly entertaining and so damn illuminating” (Entertainment Weekly), Dennard Dayle’s electrifying and wholly original collection of satirical stories create a bitingly funny portrait of American racism, capitalism, and politics.
A New Yorker Best Book of the Year
“Slyly defiant and blazingly imaginative . . . Dayle’s a genre-shattering writer, whose wit and intellect never cease to entertain.” —New York Times bestselling author Paul Beatty
Framed as a reference work of humorous “entries” that offer trenchant social commentary, Everything Abridged presages a dark vision of the near future but tells jokes in the face of it: An intelligence agency operative uncovers a conspiracy to generate conspiracies and realizes his participation in the scheme. A Caribbean monarch meets four decades of American presidents and adjusts his country’s foreign policy accordingly. Experiment participants are asked to bring back a gun as quickly as possible. A copywriter on a space colony advertises a weapon with the potential to destroy his home during an intergalactic war.
These and other linked stories, many of which feature a speculative bent—about being Black in America, law enforcement practices in an android society, Olympic speed walking, consumerism, nuclear war, and more—are interspersed with hilarious, one-line definitions for words ranging from abolition to zygote, creating a sharply humorous portrait of American inequality.
With his singular wit, sharp prose, and shrewd observations, Dennard Dayle captures the struggles his characters face to keep hold of their sanity in a society collapsing into chaos and absurdity.
A New Yorker Best Book of the Year
“Slyly defiant and blazingly imaginative . . . Dayle’s a genre-shattering writer, whose wit and intellect never cease to entertain.” —New York Times bestselling author Paul Beatty
Framed as a reference work of humorous “entries” that offer trenchant social commentary, Everything Abridged presages a dark vision of the near future but tells jokes in the face of it: An intelligence agency operative uncovers a conspiracy to generate conspiracies and realizes his participation in the scheme. A Caribbean monarch meets four decades of American presidents and adjusts his country’s foreign policy accordingly. Experiment participants are asked to bring back a gun as quickly as possible. A copywriter on a space colony advertises a weapon with the potential to destroy his home during an intergalactic war.
These and other linked stories, many of which feature a speculative bent—about being Black in America, law enforcement practices in an android society, Olympic speed walking, consumerism, nuclear war, and more—are interspersed with hilarious, one-line definitions for words ranging from abolition to zygote, creating a sharply humorous portrait of American inequality.
With his singular wit, sharp prose, and shrewd observations, Dennard Dayle captures the struggles his characters face to keep hold of their sanity in a society collapsing into chaos and absurdity.
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Everything Abridged: Stories
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Product Details
ISBN-13: | 9781419760969 |
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Publisher: | The Overlook Press |
Publication date: | 05/24/2022 |
Pages: | 352 |
Product dimensions: | 6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.20(d) |
About the Author
From the B&N Reads Blog