In his latest collection, Thomas Beller trains his piercing literary eye on how a single, seismic event indelibly shapes the trajectory of the common and mundane experiences of one’s life. Weaving together a charming set of autobiographical stories, Beller interrogates the randomness and contingencies that separate sadness from joy, death from life. His father escaped the Nazis, only to die in America from cancer when Beller was nine years old. Beller measures how this loss impacted his life as the father of two young children and became both a catalyst for understanding an ever-present sorrow. At the same time, ordinary moments—from retrieving an iPod from the subway tracks to encountering the police at a Kinks concert to observing his young tutued ballerina daughter at a gas station—lead to instances of penetrating insight, self-deprecation, and humor. Degas at the Gas Station presents an endearing and bracingly honest portrait of the author as an ever-curious observer of the mysteries and profundities of everyday life.
- Cover
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction: The Misunderstandings
- 1. The Misunderstandings
- The Frozen River, Part I
- iPod on the Tracks
- The Stuff of Life
- The Bad News Bears and Breaking Away
- The Kinks at the Garden
- The Lost Glove
- On Moving Out
- A Visit to the Library
- The Laundry Room
- Us and Them
- The Topographical Soul
- Negative Space
- The Purple Krama
- 2. The Rights
- Loose Teeth
- Degas at the Gas Station
- Thanksgiving Panic
- The Pink Comma
- How I Found My iPhone in New Orleans
- The Two-Thousand-Dollar Popsicle
- On Finding a Spot
- Saying Goodbye to Now
- Remembrance of Snows Past
- Repeat, Memory
- The Perils of Precocity
- Drain You
- Her Party
- Napoleon on the Back Stairs
- The Egg Cream in Mid-Manhattan,1982
- Somebody’s MotherIs Waiting in the Lobby
- That Time My Band Opened for Blur
- Death of a Movie Theater
- A Few Words About Jerry Stiller
- Loitering with Intent at Manet/Degas
- The Rights
- Evacuation
- The Frozen River (Reprise)
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