Synopsis:
Charles Yu experiments with form and genre to explore the stories we tell ourselves while navigating contemporary life. In "Third Class Superhero," a would- be good guy must come to terms with the darkness in his heart. A couple living in the Luxury Car Commercial subdivision in "401(k)" are disappointed when their exotic vacation turns into a Life Insurance/Asset Management pitch. The author struggles to write the definitive biography of his mother in "Autobiographical Raw Material Unsuitable for the Mining of Fiction." In these and other stories, Yu’s characters run up against the conventions and parameters of their artificial story lines while tackling the terrifying aspects of existence: mothers, jobs, spouses, the need to express feelings.
Heartbreaking, hilarious, smart, and surprising, Third Class Superhero marks the arrival of an impressive new talent.
From the Back Cover:
?My power, if you can call it that, and I don’t think you can, is that I am able to take about two gallons of water from the moisture in the air and shoot it in a stream or a gentle mist.”?Moisture Man
Moisture Man, the hero of ?Third Class Superhero,” is tired of watching his former classmates kick ass and claim their secret hideouts while he struggles to maintain his good guy accreditation. Someday soon he’ll have to decide whose side he’s really on, and how far he’s willing to push the panels of his story line. Meanwhile, in ?My Last Days as Me” the actor playing Me on the hit show Family loses his composure when the new woman playing My Mother insists on abandoning the script. In ?Problems for Self-Study,” A and B fall in love but can’t solve for the variable having a baby introduces. And a couple living in the Luxury Car Commercial subdivision in ?401(k)” realize too late that their exotic vacation is a Life Insurance/Asset Management pitch.
In these and other stories, Charles Yu’s characters run up against the conventions and parameters of their genres while tackling the terrifying aspects of existence: mothers, jobs, spouses, the need to express feelings. Heartbreaking, hilarious, smart, and surprising, Third Class Superhero marks the arrival of an impressive new talent.
"Wonderfully wry work. A terrific debut. It’s a delight to read someone who realizes that life in the world is not as simple as it is often made to seem."?Frederick Barthelme, author of Bob the Gambler
Charles Yu’s work has been published in the Harvard Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, the Mississippi Review, Mid-American Review, and elsewhere. He is the recipient of the Sherwood Anderson Fiction Award. This is his first book. He lives in Los Angeles.
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