Hailed by Time as an "extravagantly comic" novel, A Woman Named Drown is a wild and strange journey through America's South that follows a young PhD dropout who falls in with an amateur actress-cum-pool shark On the brink of earning his doctorate in chemistry, the unnamed narrator decides to chuck it all away in favor of real life. So begins an odd pilgrimage through the American South. In Tennessee, our hero is bewitched by an older, gin-swilling, pool-playing sometimes-actress who claims to have recently starred in a theatrical production about a "woman named Drown." He moves in with her and just as quickly begins encountering her strange compatriots. Before he knows it, they're heading farther south together-to Florida-where the data that the dropout scientist is collecting from life's laboratory is about to get quite contradictory. Richly influenced by offbeat literary giant Donald Barthelme, Padgett Powell's A Woman Named Drown offers readers a smorgasbord of literary strangeness-a surreal series of adventures in which nothing much-and yet everything-happens at once. "We are on the border of Donald Barthelme's never-never land. . Powell is very funny. His characters are raffish clowns with foul mouths and a kind of crazy sweetness. This is special stuff. There's a lot of vivid life here." — People "Powell's ear for Southern speech is impeccable." — Publishers Weekly Padgett Powell is the author of six novels, including The Interrogative Mood and You & Me. His novel Edisto was a finalist for the National Book Award. His writing has appeared in the New Yorker, Harper's Magazine, Little Star, and the Paris Review, and he is the recipient of the Rome Fellowship in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, as well as the Whiting Writers' Award. He lives in Gainesville, Florida, where he teaches writing at MFA@FLA, the writing program of the University of Florida

Aliens of Affection marks new territory for Padgett Powell, picking up where his first collection of stories, Typical, left off. Although his characters continue to revolt against the received instructions of modern American living-refusing to be dunked in what Saul Bellow has called the "marinade of correctness"-their concerns are less for indepence than for the maintenance of sanity itself. In this sometimes surrealistic terrain, "affection was that which, and the only thing on earth which, you should be eternally thankful for." Emotional estrangement seems both inevitable and worth fighting against to the middle-aged heroine of O. Henry Award-winner "Trick or Treat;" to the unmistakably American roofer of "Wayne" (who was introduced in Typical); to the deserted husband, father, and non-vet of "Dump;" and to the fantastic heroes in three stories grouped as "All Along the Watchtower." The nine stories collected here are hilarious, wrenching, pessimistic, buoyant, low-down, high-strung, and impeccably written

From the highly acclaimed author of Edisto and The Interrogative Mood, Padgett Powell’s new collection of stories, Cries for Help, Various, follows his mentor Donald Barthelme’s advice that “wacky mode” must “break their hearts.” The surrealistic and comical terrain of most of the forty-four stories here is grounded by a real preoccupation with longing, fear, work, loneliness, and cultural nostalgia. These universal concerns are given exhilarating life by way of Powell’s “wit, his. . dazzling turns of phrase” (Scott Spencer). In “Joplin and Dickens,” the musician and writer meet as emotionally needy students in an American grade school; in “Change of Life,” a father ponders whether getting new clothes for the family or the patriotic purchase of a “new Government Cookie Flyer” would be more meaningful. In “The Imperative Mood,” giving orders to others—“Fall back and regroup”—leads less to power than to rumination. Padgett Powell’s language is both lofty and low-down, his tone cranky and heartfelt, exuberant and inconsolable. His characters rebel against convention and ambition, hoping to maintain their very sanity by doing so. Even the most hilarious or fantastical stories in Cries for Help, Various ring gloriously, poignantly, true

Finalist for the National Book Award: Through the eyes of a precocious twelve-year-old in a seaside South Carolina town, the world of love, sex, friendship, and betrayal blossoms. Simons Everson Manigault is not a typical twelve-year-old boy in tiny Edisto, South Carolina, in the late 1960s. At the insistence of his challenging mother (known to local blacks as “the Duchess”), who believes her son to possess a capacity for genius, Simons immerses himself in great literature and becomes as literate and literary as any English professor. When Taurus, a soft-spoken African-American stranger, moves into the cabin recently vacated by the Manigaults’ longtime maid, a friendship forms. The lonely, excitable Simons and the quiet, thoughtful Taurus, who has appointed himself Simons’s guide in the ways of the grown-up world, bond over the course of a hot Southern summer. But Taurus may be playing a larger role in the Manigaults’ life than he is willing to let on — a suspicion that is confirmed when Simons’s absent father suddenly returns to the family fold. An evocative, thoughtful novel about growing up, written in language that sparkles and soars, Padgett Powell’s Edisto is the first novel of one of the most important Southern writers of the last quarter century

In the sequel to Powell’s acclaimed debut, Edisto, Simons Manigault is older — if not particularly wiser — and searching for the cure to his restlessness in memory, travel, and forbidden love. Fourteen years after we first met Simons Manigault, our protagonist is newly graduated from Clemson University, bored, unfocused, and idling his summer away at his mother’s home in Edisto, South Carolina. Not yet ready to fully embrace adulthood, Simons finds himself surrendering to cynicism, as well as to the temptations of his “turned-out-well” first cousin, Patricia. To avoid sinking further into his rut, Simons embarks on a road trip through the South. After a disastrous stint as a Corpus Christi fisherman, he exits the Lone Star State, doubling back to the Louisiana bayou to spend some quality time with his former friend and mentor — and his mother’s ex-lover — Taurus. But as even Taurus’s once sought-after wisdom wears thin, Simons begins to suspect that the grass is not greener on the other side — it may be burnt, brown, and dead wherever he goes. Padgett Powell’s literary return to Edisto is as outrageous, witty, and bitingly sharp as its predecessor. Readers who adored their first meeting with Simons Manigault will relish a second helping of his ennui and bad behavior. Newcomers will likewise be heartily glad they made the trip

A phantasmagoric dream of a novel, exploring the mind of a housewife enamored of historical personages, twisted love stories, and strange conspiracies. Mrs. Hollingsworth sits at her kitchen table, compiling her grocery list. The subject of the list is not foodstuffs, but memories that never happened, inventions of loves, and strange conspiracies peopled by men who appear in the lonely housewife’s head — men infinitely more real to her than her own husband. Confederate general Nathan Bedford Forrest gallops into her story, courtesy of media giant Ted Turner and two shady criminal types named Bundy and Oswald who are engaged in a secret experiment to create “the New Southerner.” Her prying daughters believe Mrs. Hollingsworth is losing her mind. But in truth, their mother is simply looking for love via hand-to-hand combat on the surreal battlefield inside her head. Originally published as Mrs. Hollingsworth’s Men, Padgett Powell’s Hologram is a stunning literary achievement. Strikingly unique, it is a poignant, funny, and unconventional fever dream brought to lyrical life

At her kitchen table somewhere in the South, Padgett Powell's narrator embarks on a spirited and often hilarious imagining of certain historical figures and current national preoccupations. Ostensibly writing her grocery list, Mrs. Hollingsworth most happily loses her sense of herself. Her list becomes a discovery of the things she has and those she lacks, including men — even her own husband. Mrs. Hollingsworth begins her list by imagining a lost-love story in which she is playful with and disdainful of the conventions of Southern literature. Soon tiring of that, she decides to turn up her imagination. For reasons unclear to her, the Confederate general Nathan Bedford Forrest, an icon of the Lost Cause, rides into her tired lost-love story. He appears as a hologram created by a media giant, Roopit Mogul, who aims to find the real New Southerner — in a man who can recognize General Forrest's image. Into this surreal atmosphere enter Mrs. Hollingsworth's all too real daughters, the forgotten husband, Mr. and Mrs. Mogul, the boys of the neighborhood, and petty criminals named Oswald and Bundy. Within this singular narrative collage, strong tenderness arises, with accounts of genuine lost love, both familial and wholly romantic. MRS HOLLINGSWORTH'S MEN is a remarkable achievement, full of style and feeling

Are you happy? Do we need galoshes? Are bluebirds perfect? Do you know the distinctions, empirical or theoretical, between moss and lichen? Is it clear to you why I am asking you all these questions? Should I go away? Leave you alone? Should I bother but myself with the interrogative mood? The acclaimed writer Padgett Powell is fascinated by what it feels like to walk through everyday life, to hear the swing and snap of American talk, to be both electrified and overwhelmed by the mad cacophony — the "muchness" — of America. The Interrogative Mood is Powell's playful and profound response, a bebop solo of a book in which every sentence is a question. Perhaps only Powell — a writer who was once touted as the best of his generation by Saul Bellow and "among the top five writers of fiction in the country" by Barry Hannah — could pull off such a remarkable stylistic feat. Is it a novel? Whatever it is, The Interrogative Mood is one of the most audacious literary high-wire acts since Nicholson Baker's The Mezzanine. Powell's unnamed narrator forces us to consider our core beliefs, our most cherished memories, our views on life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. In fiction as in life, there may be no easy answers — but The Interrogative Mood is an exuberant book that leaves the reader feeling a little more alive

Twenty-three surreal fictions-stories, character assassinations, and mini-travelogues-from one of the most heralded writers of the American South There are many things that repulse "Dr. Ordinary." "Kansas" is notable for its distinct lack of farmland. "Wayne's Fate" is most unfortunate, not merely for Wayne but for the roofer pal who stands by watching his good buddy lose his head. "Miss Resignation" simply cannot win at Bingo. And there is nothing "Typical" about the unemployed steelworker and self-described "piece of crud" who strides through this collection's title story. Welcome to the world of Padgett Powell, one of the most original American literary voices in recent memory. Typical is both a bravura demonstration of Powell's passion for words, and an offbeat, perceptive view of contemporary life-an enthralling work by a one-of-a-kind wordsmith, and a redefinition of what short fiction can be. "A sparkling collection." — Time "Powell takes short stories to places where I've rarely seen them go." — Chicago Tribune "Powerful. . Powell has an almost unequaled ability to bring Southern colloquial speech to the page." — The New York Times "Lyrically intense and full of the surreal juxtapositions you find in the flotsam of floodwaters: stories at once edgy and exuberant." — Kirkus Reviews Padgett Powell is the author of six novels, includingThe Interrogative Mood and You & Me. His novel Edisto was a finalist for the National Book Award. His writing has appeared in the New Yorker, Harper's Magazine, Little Star, and the Paris Review, and he is the recipient of the Rome Fellowship in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, as well as the Whiting Writers' Award. He lives in Gainesville, Florida, where he teaches writing at MFA@FLA, the writing program of the University of Florida

The cult hit The Interrogative Mood — a Best Book of the Year selection by Amazon.com, GQ, The Believer, Time Out New York, and elsewhere — reminded readers that Padgett Powell is one of the enduring stars of American fiction, an electric novelist with a pitch-perfect ear for the way Americans talk and the strange things we say and believe. Now he returns with a hilarious Southern send-up of Samuel Beckett's classic Waiting for Godot, and we enter the world of the sublime and trivial as only Powell can envision it. Two loquacious men sit talking on a porch. Funny and profound, daft and cogent, they argue about love and sex, how best to live and die, the merits of Miles Davis and Cadillacs and Hollywood starlets of yore, underused clichés, false truisms, and the meaning of nihilism. Together, they shoot the shit — and then they go on shooting it long after it's dead. Ribald and roaring, You & Me is an exuberant and very funny novel from a master of American fiction at the top of his game