Sad Grownups
by Amy Stuber
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Pub Date 8 Oct 2024 | Archive Date 17 Oct 2024
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Description
From award-winning fiction writer, Amy Stuber, comes a witty, empathic, "powerhouse" (Booklist) debut collection that explores American life in the shadow of climate crisis and late-stage capitalism. For those who've been sad and tried not to be, seventeen stories about the absurdity of searching for joy in a dying world.
A neighborhood of picturesque content-creation houses perched on too-green lawns in a California desert; a meandering stampede of unleashed dogs on the streets of San Francisco; a skein of snow geese alighting in a state park in Missouri; an uncanny fundraising auction at an upscale suburban-DC prep school. Inhabiting these worlds of disconnection and dislocation are the "sad grownups" a middle-aged queer couple arguing over whether to have children, a college professor dying from cancer, two recent high school graduates plotting a robbery, a sixty-year-old counselor at a boys' summer camp sheltering herself from the realities of life-all connected more closely to the landscapes around them than to other people, searching fervently for liberation, understanding, and even happiness, wherever and however they might be found.
Melancholy, engagingly weird, and very humane, with metafictional elements throughout. "You will love this book!" (Richard Mirabella, Brother and Sister Enter the Forest)
Advance Praise
"A powerhouse collection from a promising author."
– Booklist
“These seventeen varied and remarkable stories often start with a curious premise, but open into complex, believable worlds, with rich characterization. Smart, funny, spooky and melancholy, SAD GROWNUPS is full of unique gems that come together into a rewarding whole.”
– Dan Chaon, author of Stay Awake
“There is a cool immediacy, an urgency to these stories that feels like a whispered invitation to read them. But Stuber also handles the often off-kilter characters and tales with such a steady, sure hand that I felt safe and a little in awe. The definition of reading deliciously!”
– Amber Sparks, author of And I Do Not Forgive You
"Wise, inventive, and funny, Sad Grownups is also an incisive collective portrait of contemporary Americans: each story distinctly and decidedly itself, gathered together into a sometimes delightful, sometimes sobering snapshot of what it is to be alive today. In the tradition of Amy Hempel and Lorrie Moore, Amy Stuber is as sharp as she is tender, a delight to read.”
– Kate Doyle, author of I Meant it Once
“Stories that hold the grief of the whole world but also the imaginative exultation of trying to live in it. Stuber writes sentences that are in a class of their own—flexible enough to twist from heartbreak into hilarity, full of observations so precise they leave you gasping. Sad Grownups is a brilliant collection.”
– Clare Beams, author of The Garden and The Illness Lesson
“If emotions had geographical locations, then Amy Stuber’s deeply moving short story collection Sad Grownups took me to those places, but in no way was it like riding a Greyhound bus, hitting each city, each emotion, one at a time. Each story took me to the joyfully complex, lovingly hated yet adored world as it is today, and did so with some of the funniest and saddest characters I’ve read in quite some time. Reading these stories, I lost myself, and when I put the book down, I found myself anew. Sad Grownups is a remarkable debut story collection by a writer who I already want more from.”
– Morgan Talty, national bestselling author of Night of the Living Rez and Fire Exit: A Novel
"The stories in Sad Grownups are masterful. They feel both contemporary and timeless and engage American life today in ways that are at turns funny, insightful, and wise. I couldn't stop reading."
– Cara Blue Adams, author of You Never Get It Back
“Amy Stuber's stories are about your neighbors and friends, the people you think you know, and what they are all hiding from you: the truth, which is that we are children and will remain so, that we are performing and we don't know it. Stuber's characters fumble through adulthood, they endure the confusing mysteries of growing up, they try to connect and instead create disasters. SAD GROWNUPS marks the arrival of an erudite, controlled, and generous voice from the heart of America. You will love this book.”
– Richard Mirabella Author of Brother & Sister Enter the Forest
Marketing Plan
Marketing Plan
Author Events: Books Are Magic (Brooklyn), Kramer Books (DC), Raven Bookstore (Lawrence, KS), RiffRaff Books (Providence), Rainy Day Books (Kansas City), etc.
Related Stories, Essays, & Interviews: Electric Lit, The Common, Copper Nickel, Florida Review's Aquifer, CRAFT, The Rumpus, Largehearted Boy, etc.
National Literary Festivals: Fall for the Book, Kansas Book Festival, etc.
Podcasts: Debutiful, Short Story Today, etc.
Available Editions
| EDITION | Paperback |
| ISBN | 9080996981668 |
| PRICE | US$16.00 (USD) |
| PAGES | 219 |
Available on NetGalley
Featured Reviews
Jincy W, Reviewer
Amy Stuber’s Sad Grownups is a brilliant collection. Each story—each page—surprises with detail both intriguing and unsparing. Stuber’s characters are complex and presented whole, which is a tough thing to do when you are writing short fiction. She examines loss, death, grief, parenthood, without sentimentality. It is that rare book which, when you come to the last page, makes you want to go back to the beginning and experience it once more. Sad Grownups deserves a wide readership.
Jessica P, Reviewer
Full disclaimer, I’m in the hospital right now, (unplanned stay,) so I have to read on my phone and my god that’s a tiny screen. Thank you to Stillhouse press for approving my arcs requests and keeping my mind busy, it’s priceless at the moment.
Obviously the title was the main draw to me, as I am indeed a very sad grownup (who isn’t in this economy?), I also love short stories cause they’re low commitment (especially if you like to read before bed), and I don’t read enough of them.
All the stories are individual but they do have a lot in common. Alice, Renee,
Frida, Heather and all the others, are at a point in their lives where they look back and reflect. Lots of talk about motherhood and wether to become a mother or not. Or how a relationship with a complicated mother can impact someone’s life years beyond childhood. Many of the stories also talk about girlhood and womanhood, what it means to be and become a woman (and we also go back to the motherhood theme). There are also men involved but there were not my focus, sorry lads.
Little women was probably my favourite, mostly because of this quote
This is what it means to be a woman in this world. Put a lot of justs in your sentences when talking to boys, to men, even if your idea is better; you don’t want. to look shrill or undermining. Say I’m sorry. Say it again while you’re looking down and then laughing but under your breath because not too loud, ever.
Corina C, Reviewer
{ ARC REVIEW }
• Sad Grownups by Amy Stuber
• Short Stories, Literary Fiction, Women’s Fiction
Description:
A debut collection that explores American life in the shadow of climate crisis and late-stage capitalism. For those who’ve been sad and tried not to be, seventeen stories about the absurdity of searching for joy in a dying world.
My Thoughts:
Wow, did this make me feel weighted down, heavy with sadness and angst. But in a good way!
You know, like, you’re just trying to live your life, do all the right things in the right way at the right time, but don’t you feel sometimes like you could just slightly push your finger into someone talking to you and hope they might slip over a cliff’s edge??
Yeah…that’s this book. Intrusive thoughts, odd behavior, sadness, but also loads of empathy and wanting to understand the world, and those in it, better.
Stuber’s writing style is phenomenally unique and poetic. I thoroughly enjoyed it all. Short sentences contrast against long winded sentences that showcase the mind of a really messy and conflicted human stuck in thought and decision. Each short story reflects a different issue, putting life on display, utterly appalling and visceral.
I can’t look away. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️!
• Anticipated Pub Day: 10.08.24
Thank you to @stillhousepress and @NetGalley for sending an Advance Reader’s Copy for review consideration. All opinions are my own.
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