North of Ordinary

Gardiner, John Rolfe/ Benfey, Christopher (Introduction by)/ Nicklin, Maria (Illustrator)

ISBN 10: 195427632X / ISBN 13: 9781954276321

Published by Bellevue Literary Pr, 2025

About this Item

224 pages. 8.25x5.50x0.75 inches. In Stock.

Seller Inventory # x-195427632X

Bibliographic Details

• Title: North of Ordinary
• Publisher: Bellevue Literary Pr
• Publication Date: 2025
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 195427632X
• ISBN 13: 9781954276321
• Binding: Paperback
• Illustrator: Nicklin, Maria
• Condition: Brand New
• Weight: 0.27 kilograms

About this title

Synopsis

The long-awaited return of a quintessentially American storyteller

“You’re as likely to be hit twice by lightning on a Monday as see a wood chipper pull a man into its maw.”

So begins North of Ordinary, John Rolfe Gardner’s virtuosic story collection of survivors getting by despite the odds in a shifting world. In these pages, we meet a nervous young apprentice to a weathered tree climber; a dangerously obsessed student at a Southern Bible college; an attractive schemer trying to build an audience for her tiny radio station; an undercover, cross-dressing lawman whose friendship changes the life of a deaf child in a suburban cul-de-sac; and an elderly Black mason whose knowledge of the town’s history harbors truths that shake his visitor’s foundation.

Surprising, touching, and deeply humane, the ten stories of North of Ordinary offer an intimate, revelatory look at our fractured society and pull us together through the power of art.

About the Author

John Rolfe Gardiner was born in New York and grew up in the Washington, D.C. suburbs of Northern Virginia during World War II. Recipient of a Lila Wallace-Reader’s Digest Writers Award and National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, he is the author of six novels and four collections of short fiction, including North of Ordinary. His stories have appeared in the New Yorker, American Scholar, Oxford American, One Story, Pushcart Prize anthology, PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories, Best American Short Stories, and elsewhere. Gardiner lives in Middleburg, Virginia, with his wife, ceramic artist Joan Gardiner.