The Teachings of Don B.: Satires, Parodies, Fables, Illustrated Stories, and Plays - Softcover

Barthelme, Donald

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1640090266 ISBN 13: 9781640090262

Publisher: Counterpoint, 2018

Synopsis

"Barthelme . . . happens to be one of a handful of American authors, there to make us look bad, who know instinctively how to stash the merchandise, bamboozle the inspectors, and smuggle their nocturnal contraband right on past the checkpoints of daylight 'reality.'" ―Thomas Pynchon, from the Introduction

Sixty-three rare or previously uncollected works by a master of the American short story form

*A hypothetical episode of Batman hilariously slowed down to soap-opera speed.
*A game of baseball as played by T. S. Eliot and Willem "Big Bull" de Kooning.
*A recipe for feeding sixty pork-sotted celebrants at your daughter's wedding.
*An outlandishly illustrated account of a scientific quest for God.

These astonishing tropes of the imagination could only have been generated by Donald Barthelme, who―until his death in 1989―seemed intent on goosing American letters into taking a quantum leap. Gleeful, melancholy, erudite, and wonderfully subversive, The Teachings of Don B. is a literary testament cum time bomb, with the power to blast any reader into an altered state of consciousness.

"A small education in laughter, melancholy, and the English language." ―The New York Times Book Review

“Barthelme, who died in 1989, was a distinctive master of fragments . . . Anger, wit, extravagant associations and disassociations; these would be less memorable if it were not for Barthelme's ability to evoke dreams and the tenderness with which he does it.” ―Los Angeles Times

About this title

From the Inside Flap

A hypothetical episode of Batman hilariously slowed down to soap-opera speed. A game of baseball as played by T.S. Eliot and Wilem "Big Ball" de Kooning. A recipe suitable for feeding sixty park-enamored celebrants at one's daughter's wedding. An outlandishly illustrated account of a scientific quest for God. These astonishing tropes of the imagination could only have been generated by Donald Barthelme, who, until his death in 1989, more or less goosed American letters into taking a quantum leap. Now sixty-three of Barthelme's rare or previously uncollected shorter works--including satires and fables, plays for stage and radio, and collages--have been assembled in a single volume. Gleeful, melancholy, erudite, and wonderfully subversive, The Teachings of Don B. is a literary testament cum time bomb, with the power to blast any reader into an altered state of consciousness.

"Barthelme happens to be one of a handful of American authors, there to make the rest of us look bad, who know instinctively how to stash the merchandise, bamboozle the inspectors, and smuggle their nocturnal contraband right on past the checkpoints of daylight 'reality.'"--Thomas Pynchon, from the Introduction

About the Author

DONALD BARTHELME is a winner of the National Book Award and is the author of over seventeen books, including Flying to America, City Life (one of Time Magazine’s Best Books of the Year), and Sixty Stories, which was nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award, the PEN/Faulkner Award, and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. He was a founder of the renowned University of Houston Creative Writing Program, where he taught for many years. He died in 1989.

KIM HERZINGER is a critic and fiction writer, winner of a Pushcart Prize, and writer on minimalism and other contemporary literary phenomena. He edited most recently Flying to America: 45 More Stories. He teaches at the University of Southern Mississippi.

About this edition

• Publisher: Counterpoint
• Publication date: 2018
• ISBN 10: 1640090266
• ISBN 13: 9781640090262
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 384
• Editor: Herzinger Kim