An Authentic Captain Marvel Ring and Other Stories

Overview

The very best short stories and novellas from National Public Radio's Alan Cheuse are brought together in a quintessential collection. Countless listeners depend on the book reviews from Cheuse, America's "voice of books," and many of those listeners also follow his own critically acclaimed fiction and nonfiction. The title story—a flash fiction piece that acts as both prologue and an intriguing look at a writer's inspiration—takes us through a child's eyes into a fantastic land, one that informs, shapes, and travels along with the other stories in this stunning collection. These stories deal with life, death, love, family, work, and a deep exploration of the soul.

Reviews

“These stories cross borders of place and time, but no matter where they lead, the location is a lucid, tangible present. As travelers go, Cheuse, a humanist, is too at home in the world to mine the exotic; but as stylists go, the artful cadence of his prose and the intense focus of each story belongs to a tradition that runs from Hemingway and Dos Passos through Paul Bowles.”  —Stuart Dybek, author, I Sailed with Magellan

"Cheuse's sinuously versatile new collection . . . [is] eerie, funny, and moving."  —Jennifer Egan, author, A Visit from the Good Squad

"Readers can slip into An Authentic Captain Marvel Ring & Other Stories with the assurance that they will get the best of both worlds; grounded fiction about people you might know, or wish you did not know, or might actually sort-of be, but seen with a clarity and imagination that one might find in a rather different genre. Here's a book you can read with the assurance that you will know more about your own soul going out than coming in. Depending on how you feel about such things, replace the word "assurance" with the word 'warning.'"—Agony Column

"The array of time, place, and character amply display Cheuse's prowess and imagination, making for a freighted collection." —Danise Hoover, Booklist

Author Biography

Alan Cheuse is National Public Radio's longtime "voice of books" and is the author of five novels, four collections of short fiction, the memoir Fall Out of Heaven, and the collection of travel essays, A Trance After Breakfast. He is a regular contributor to NPR's "All Things Considered" and his short fiction has appeared in the Antioch Review, the Idaho Review, New Letters magazine, the New Yorker, Ploughshares magazine, Prairie Schooner journal, and the Southern Review, among other places. He teaches in the Writing Program at George Mason University and the Squaw Valley Community of Writers. He lives in Washington, DC.