A special thanks is due to the MacDowell Colony, who provided not just time and space, of the most ideal kind, but some unnameable deeper gift, conducive to work and concentration, that is harder and harder to find.
To Deborah Treisman, thank you for your faith and support and always exacting editorial insights. Many of these stories are much improved because of you.
To Denise Shannon, my one and only agent, thank you as always for your brilliance, candor, and advocacy. I have been so fortunate to be able to work with you for all of these years.
To Jordan Pavlin, thank you for your unerring belief. I am endlessly grateful for your intelligence and loyalty and passion.
And to everyone at Knopf—thank you for sticking by me and offering such a very good home.
A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ben Marcus is the author of four books of fiction—The Age of Wire and String, Notable American Women, The Flame Alphabet, and Leaving the Sea—and the editor of two short-story anthologies: The Anchor Book of New American Short Stories and New American Stories. His fiction has appeared in Granta, Harper’s Magazine, The New Yorker, The Paris Review, McSweeney’s, and Tablet. Among his awards are a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Berlin Prize, a Whiting Award, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in fiction, and three Pushcart Prizes. He lives with his family in New York City, where he is on the faculty at Columbia University.
Also by Ben Marcus
The Age of Wire and String
Notable American Women
The Flame Alphabet
Leaving the Sea
The Anchor Book of New American Short Stories
New American Stories
Newsletter
Copyright
THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF
Copyright © 2018 by Ben Marcus
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York, and distributed in Canada by Random House of Canada, a division of Penguin Random House Canada Limited, Toronto.
Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.
Several stories were first published in the following publications Bomb: “The Trees of Sawtooth Park” · Frieze: “Critique” as “Notes from the Hospital” (2013) · Granta: “George and Elizabeth” (November 2015) · Harper’s Magazine: “A Suicide of Trees” as “A Failure of Concern” (January 2008) · The New Yorker: “Blueprint for St. Louis” (October 2017); “Cold Little Bird” (October 2015); “The Grow-Light Blues” (June 2015); “Stay Down and Take It” (May 2018) · Tablet Magazine: “Omen” as “A Problem with the Sun” (2015) · The Thing Quarterly: “Lotion” as “Prophecy” (Issue 21).
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Marcus, Ben, [date] author.
Title: Speeding pieces of light : stories / Ben Marcus.
Description: First edition, | New York : Alfred A. Knopf, 2018. | Description based on print version record and CIP data provided by publisher; resource not viewed.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017054648 (print) | LCCN 2017057668 (ebook) | ISBN 9781101947456 (hardcover : acid-free paper) | ISBN 9781101947463 (ebook)
Subjects: | BISAC: FICTION / Literary. | FICTION / Short Stories (single author).
Classification: LCC PS3563.A6375 (ebook) | LCC PS3563.A6375 A6 2018 (print) | DDC 813/.54—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017054648
Ebook ISBN 9781101947463
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Cover photograph by Alexander Mourant
Cover design by Peter Mendelsund
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