LATEST SALES & OFFERS: PROMOTIONS

Close Notification

Your cart does not contain any items

Oral History of Atlantis, An

Stories

Ed Park

$55

Hardback

Forthcoming
Pre-Order now

QTY:

English
Random House Inc
02 September 2025
A deadpan, wildly imaginative collection of stories that slices clean through the mundanity and absurdity of modern life, from the author of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize-winner and Pulitzer Prize finalist Same Bed Different Dreams

Gilt-edged stories that slice clean through the mundanity of modern life, from the author of Same Bed Different Dreams, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize

""Ed Park is one of the funniest writers working today, and among the most humane.""-Kaveh Akbar, author of Martyr!

In ""Machine City"" a college student's chance role in a friend's movie blurs the line between his character and his true self. (Is he a robot?) In ""Slide to Unlock"" a man comes to terms with his life via the passwords he struggles to remember in extremis. (What's his mom's name backward?) And in ""Weird Menace"" a director and faded movie star gab about science fiction, bad costume choices, and lost loves on a commentary track for a B-film from the '80s that neither remembers all that well.

In Ed Park's utterly original collection, An Oral History of Atlantis, characters bemoan their fleeting youth, focus on their breathing, meet cute, break up, write book reviews, translate ancient glyphs, bid on stuff online, whale watch, and once in a while find solace in the sublime. Throughout, Park deploys his trademark wit to create a world both strikingly recognizable and delightfully other. Spanning a quarter century, these sixteen stories tell the absurd truth about our lives. They capture the moment when the present becomes the past-and are proof positive that Ed Park is one of the most imaginative and insightful writers working today.
By:  
Imprint:   Random House Inc
Country of Publication:   United States
Dimensions:   Height: 210mm,  Width: 140mm,  Spine: 16mm
Weight:   384g
ISBN:   9780812998993
ISBN 10:   0812998995
Pages:   224
Publication Date:  
Audience:   General/trade ,  ELT Advanced
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Forthcoming

Ed Park is the author of the novels Same Bed Different Dreams, which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Fiction, was named a Top Ten Book of the Year by Publishers Weekly and was a New York Times Notable Book; and Personal Days, a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award. His short fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, McSweeney's, Vice, Harvard Review, and other periodicals and anthologies, and he writes regularly for The New York Review of Books, Harper's, The Atlantic, Bookforum, and elsewhere. Ed was a founding editor of The Believer and the former literary editor of The Voice Literary Supplement, and has also worked in publishing. Born in Buffalo, he lives in Manhattan with his family, and currently teaches writing at Princeton University.

Reviews for Oral History of Atlantis, An: Stories

“An Oral History of Atlantis is a snapshot of who we are and where we are as well as an offbeat map to where we might dare to go. The stories are mordant, inventive, heartbreaking, and above all else, profoundly human, and I’m already looking forward to a re-read.”—Paul Tremblay, New York Times bestselling author of Horror Movie “Funny, tragic, winsome screwball science-fiction prose poetry of ‘maximum lexical density’ that’s pure pleasure to read.”—Sarah Manguso, author of Liars “What’s the collective noun for a school of stories so bright and brilliant, they ripple with humor, compassion, and wonder? Call them an ‘Ed Park.’ An Oral History of Atlantis will continue to delight us, long after the flood.”—Samantha Hunt, author of The Dark Dark “Park’s delightful tales, which are driven by provocative ideas, strange occurrences, and gripping plots, pay tribute to the legacy of Kurt Vonnegut in the best ways. This pitch-perfect collection will linger in readers’ minds for a long time.”—Publishers Weekly, starred review “Ed Park is a magician of storytelling. These stories explore the multiplicity of time and space—artistic, historical, and psychological—and confront once and again the shapeshifting border between reality and unreality. With sly humor and deep understanding, Park makes the reader laugh from disquiet, and tear up from being seen.”—Yiyun Li, author of Wednesday’s Child


See Also