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A Fictional History of the United States With Huge Chunks Missing 
T COOPER & ADAM MANSBACH P R E S S : * Los Angeles Times Summer Pick 2006 * * Village Voice Summer's Best Books 2006 * New ROUNDTABLE discussion w/ T Cooper & other anthologists in The Southeast Review (April 2007) Listen to T Cooper, Paul La Farge & Felicia Luna Lemus on WFUV radio: "Idiot's Delight" show (NYC) (Click above link & go to archives, then October 21, 2006 Vin Scelsa show) Listen to T Cooper & Adam Mansbach on KPFA radio (Berkeley, CA) (September 19, 2006 show) "Howard Zinn has met his match in this wry and winking account of these United States." --Bloomberg.com "Cooper's and Mansbach's thesis is noble and intellectually rigorous." --Publishers Weekly "Provides an antidote to the glossy dross that often passes for history. A must read for individuals serious about history, this book belongs on the shelf right next to Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States and James W. Loewen's Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong." --Historical Novels Review "These stories run the gamut from hilarious to tragic as they target subjects that are controversial or politically incorrect. The authors... have chosen to reflect on moments in history that moved them, with results that are diverse, readable, entertaining, and compelling... A new perspective on U.S. history." --Library Journal "One of the better short fiction anthologies I've read in awhile, A Fictional History of the United States With Huge Chunks Missing presents stories that take issue with the high school version of American history. It's more fun than Howard Zinn's classic radical history book, and doesn't even skimp on specifics. Editors T Cooper and Adam Mansbach have curated a mix of stories that hit notes of tragedy and hilarity with equal care. They and their contributors have found 'history' to be as irresistible a framing device as any resulting readers will." --Bookslut "History is always written by the victors, but now you can hear the other side of the story. In [this collection], T Cooper and Adam Mansbach have edited a collection of groundbreaking fictional accounts of some of the country's funniest and most obscure lore." --The Advocate "Impressive...a thought-provoking waltz through time." --Under the Radar "A&E Biography big-timers are either absent or ass-out in this short-story collection, a people's history that mixes the reverent and the absurd. Alexander Chee wind-walks with our Chinese discoverers, David Rees gets his Reconstruction on, and Adam Mansbach rips out the roots of pop-cult colonialism--topping a freewheeling first half that evokes the broken souls of manifest destiny. Things get increasingly solemn after the New Deal, when the excavated voices get closer to ones the writers heard growing up (Keith Knight's cartoon on the ruin wrought by a Globetrotters loss is a hilarious exception). Peruvian writer Daniel Alarcon finally flushes us with a future civil war (next year, even) where rebs steal a presidential limb and the missing chunk becomes America itself." --The Village Voice "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 may be written by the victors, but neither the official story nor the corrupted sorts who foist it upon us can vanquish the truth--especially the truth produced by lying of the artful and big-hearted variety. Hooray for this hilarious and pointed fictional history! Hooray for the missing chunks, too!" --SAM LIPSYTE, author of Home Land "This is the only essential anthology to come along in the 21st century. Had William Burroughs edited short fiction by Howard Zinn, the result would fit snugly between these covers. Be prepared to experience American history in an entirely new way." --JAIME MANRIQUE, author of Our Lives are the Rivers * * * * From Akashic Books with stories 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 * Thomas O'Malley * Neal Pollack * David Rees * Sarah Schulman * Darin Strauss * Benjamin Weissman The last few years have been hard on the truth... 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 fiction 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. back to top |