Gob's Grief

The introduction, discussion questions, suggestions for further reading, and author biography that follow are designed to enhance your group's reading of Chris Adrian's Gob's Grief --an intimate portrait of individual human suffering and an unusual history of the American physical and social landscape scarred by the Civil War. In this eerie and brilliant debut novel a fascinating cast of both real and fictional characters is assembled who all share one common trait: grief for brethren who were lost in the bloodiest war fought on United States soil. And from this context emerges one tortured soul whose despair grows into a maniacal obsession with resurrecting the dead.

Chris Adrian’s fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Ploughshares, Story and in Best American Short Stories. Currently a medical student, he lives in San Francisco.