Leaving the Sea ─ Stories

From one of the most innovative and important writers of his generation, a brilliant collection of stories that showcase his gifts--and his range--as never before.

In the dystopian "Rollingwood," a divorced father struggles to hold on to his job while taking care of his ill infant son. In the hilarious "I Can Say Many Nice Things," a writer toying with infidelity teaches a brutal creative writing workshop on a cruise ship. In "Watching Mysteries with My Mother," a man spends time with his aging mother and meditates on mortality. And in the title story, told in a single breathless sentence, we watch as the narrator's marriage and his sanity unravel.

Surreal and tender, terrifying and life-affirming, Leaving the Sea brings us an utterly unique writer at the height of his powers.

BEN MARCUS is the author of four books of fiction: Notable American Women, The Father Costume, The Age of Wire and String, and The Flame Alphabet, and he is the editor of The Anchor Book of New American Short Stories. His stories, essays, and reviews have appeared in Harper's, The New Yorker, The Paris Review, McSweeney's, The Believer, The New York Times, Salon, and Time. He is the recipient of a Whiting Writers' Award, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in fiction, and three Pushcart Prizes.