Seth Weinstein knew Tina was way out of his league, so it’s astonishing that he was on the plane now for their destination wedding in Florida. In the next several hours, he and his friends will become embroiled with rioters, Russian gangsters, angry strippers, a pimp as big as the Death Star, a very desperate Haitian refugee on the run with her two children from some very bad men, and an 11-foot albino Burmese python named Blossom.

Seth Weinstein knew Tina was way out of his league, so it’s astonishing that he was on the plane now for their destination wedding in Florida. In the next several hours, he and his friends will become embroiled with rioters, Russian gangsters, angry strippers, a pimp as big as the Death Star, a very desperate Haitian refugee on the run with her two children from some very bad men, and an 11-foot albino Burmese python named Blossom.

A dark comic masterpiece --- the first solo adult novel in more than a decade from the Pulitzer Prize winner and New York Times bestselling author.

Seth Weinstein knew Tina was way out of his league in pretty much any way you could imagine, which is why it continued to astonish him that he was on the plane now for their destination wedding in Florida. The Groom Posse had already sprung an airport prank on him, and he’d survived it, and if that was the worst of it, everything should be okay. Smooth sailing from now on.

Seth has absolutely no idea what he’s about to get into. In the next several hours, he and his friends will become embroiled with rioters, Russian gangsters, angry strippers, a pimp as big as the Death Star, a very desperate Haitian refugee on the run with her two children from some very bad men, and an eleven-foot albino Burmese python named Blossom. And there’re still two days to go before the wedding.

As it turns out, it’s not smooth sailing, it’s more like a trip on the Titanic. And the water below him is getting deeper every minute. By the end, amid gunfire, high-speed chases, and mayhem of the most unimaginable sort, violent men will fall, heroes will rise, and many lives will change.

Seth’s, not least of all.

Kit Brennan has always been the most grounded of her sisters. A Catholic school English teacher for 17 years, Kit's decisions have always been sound --- but not too satisfying. When a girls' weekend away gives Kit a much-needed reprieve, she meets a dangerous man who challenges everything she thought she was --- or should be. Now Kit must decide: will she finally let her desires take flight, or will she continue to be the good daughter?

Kit Brennan has always been the most grounded of her sisters. A Catholic school English teacher for 17 years, Kit's decisions have always been sound --- but not too satisfying. When a girls' weekend away gives Kit a much-needed reprieve, she meets a dangerous man who challenges everything she thought she was --- or should be. Now Kit must decide: will she finally let her desires take flight, or will she continue to be the good daughter?

One night, Alice Alessio --- also known as Nurse Spandex --- is given the surprise of her life. Coming back from a secret tryst with a doctor, she peeks in to check on the newborn baby she was supposed to be watching, and finds a huge, writhing red-and-yellow snake in the bassinet instead. So begins the series of strange and disturbing events that start to plague a sleepy little community and confound the police.

One night, Alice Alessio --- also known as Nurse Spandex --- is given the surprise of her life. Coming back from a secret tryst with a doctor, she peeks in to check on the newborn baby she was supposed to be watching, and finds a huge, writhing red-and-yellow snake in the bassinet instead. So begins the series of strange and disturbing events that start to plague a sleepy little community and confound the police.

The sleepy community of Brewster, Rhode Island, is just like any other small American town. It’s a place where most of the population will likely die blocks from where they were born; where gossip spreads like wildfire, and the big entertainment on weekends is the inevitable fight at the local bar. But recently, something out of the ordinary --- perhaps even supernatural --- has been stirring in Brewster. While packs of coyotes gather on back roads and the news spreads that a baby has been stolen from Memorial Hospital (and replaced in its bassinet by a snake), a series of inexplicably violent acts begins to confound Detective Woody Potter and the local police --- and inspire terror in the hearts and minds of the locals.

From award-winning author Stephen Dobyns comes a sardonic yet chillingly suspenseful novel: the literary equivalent of a Richard Russo small-town tableau crossed with a Stephen King thriller. THE BURN PALACE is a darkly funny, twisted portrait of chaos and paranoia, with an impressive host of richly rendered, larger-than-life characters and a thrilling plot that will keep readers guessing until the final pages.

The 10 stories in George Saunders’s latest collection demonstrate why he is considered a modern master of short fiction. From “Victory Lap,” the tale of an attempted abduction, to “The Semplica Girl Diaries,” in which families employ Asian women as live garden ornaments, Saunders’s gift for inventive plots and vivid detail, and his ability to home in on moments that quickly define character, have never been used to more stunning effect. Believe the hype.

The 10 stories in George Saunders’s latest collection demonstrate why he is considered a modern master of short fiction. From “Victory Lap,” the tale of an attempted abduction, to “The Semplica Girl Diaries,” in which families employ Asian women as live garden ornaments, Saunders’s gift for inventive plots and vivid detail, and his ability to home in on moments that quickly define character, have never been used to more stunning effect. Believe the hype.

One of the most important and blazingly original writers of his generation, George Saunders is an undisputed master of the short story, and TENTH OF DECEMBER is his most honest, accessible, and moving collection yet.
 
In the taut opener, “Victory Lap,” a boy witnesses the attempted abduction of the girl next door and is faced with a harrowing choice: Does he ignore what he sees, or override years of smothering advice from his parents and act? In “Home,” a combat-damaged soldier moves back in with his mother and struggles to reconcile the world he left with the one to which he has returned. And in the title story, a stunning meditation on imagination, memory, and loss, a middle-aged cancer patient walks into the woods to commit suicide, only to encounter a troubled young boy who, over the course of a fateful morning, gives the dying man a final chance to recall who he really is. A hapless, deluded owner of an antiques store; two mothers struggling to do the right thing; a teenage girl whose idealism is challenged by a brutal brush with reality; a man tormented by a series of pharmaceutical experiments that force him to lust, to love, to kill --- the unforgettable characters that populate the pages of TENTH OF DECEMBER are vividly and lovingly infused with Saunders’s signature blend of exuberant prose, deep humanity, and stylistic innovation.
 
Writing brilliantly and profoundly about class, sex, love, loss, work, despair and war, Saunders cuts to the core of the contemporary experience. These stories take on the big questions and explore the fault lines of our own morality, delving into the questions of what makes us good and what makes us human.
 
Unsettling, insightful and hilarious, the stories in TENTH OF DECEMBER --- through their manic energy, their focus on what is redeemable in human beings, and their generosity of spirit --- not only entertain and delight; they fulfill Chekhov’s dictum that art should “prepare us for tenderness.”