Stay Awake
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY
The Washington Post € San Francisco Chronicle
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Before the critically acclaimed novels Await Your Reply and You Remind Me of Me, Dan Chaon made a name for himself as a renowned writer of dazzling short stories. Now, in Stay Awake, Chaon returns to that form for the first time since his masterly Among the Missing, a finalist for the National Book Award.
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In these haunting, suspenseful stories, lost, fragile, searching characters wander between ordinary life and a psychological shadowland. They have experienced intense love or loss, grief or loneliness, displacement or disconnection€"and find themselves in unexpected, dire, and sometimes unfathomable situations.
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A father€s life is upended by his son€s night terrors€"and disturbing memories of the first wife and child he abandoned; a foster child receives a call from the past and begins to remember his birth mother, whose actions were unthinkable; a divorced woman experiences her own dark version of €œempty-nest syndrome€Â; a young widower is unnerved by the sudden, inexplicable appearances of messages and notes€"on dollar bills, inside a magazine, stapled to the side of a tree; and a college dropout begins to suspect that there€s something off, something sinister, in his late parents€ house.
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Dan Chaon€s stories feature scattered families, unfulfilled dreamers, anxious souls. They exist in a twilight realm€"in a place by the window late at night when the streets are empty and the world appears to be quiet. But you are up, unable to sleep. So you stay awake.
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Praise for Stay Awake
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€œEerily beautiful . . . [Chaon] is the modern day John Cheever.€Â€"Boston Sunday Globe
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€œPowerful and disturbing . . . The shocks in this collection are many.€Â€"The Washington Post
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€œChaon is able to create fully realized characters in mere pages. . . . This collection is further proof that Chaon is one of the best fiction writers working right now.€Â€"Omaha World-Herald
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€œThere are not many fiction writers who can do what Dan Chaon can do. . . . [He is] a literary force.€Â€"The Philadelphia Inquirer
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€œIntense and suspenseful . . . a highly recommended work, not to be missed.€Â€"Library Journal (starred review)
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€œMesmerizing . . . gripping, masterful fiction.€Â€"The Plain Dealer
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€œSuperbly disquieting.€Â€"The New York Times Book Review