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The Dzanc Books rEprint Series is dedicated to publishing great works of contemporary literature that are deserving and clearly will benefit from having their work appear in electronic form. Our efforts include works that have recently gone out of print, books in print that have yet to be converted to e-form, as well as titles where the author holds the eBook rights and is looking for a publishing partner for the electronic version of their book. Starting in Summer 2011, these works will be made available by Dzanc to the reading public in the form of eBooks compatible with all currently available eBook platforms, distributed both directly from Dzanc and through eBook resellers.

This series originates out of a belief that many of these titles did not have the opportunity to reach their fullest potential audiences in the time of their original publication, and that a second chance for achieving a wider readership is long overdue. By bringing them back into print in widely-available electronic formats, Dzanc hope to restart the critical conversations around these books, and to get them into the hands of the enthusiastic readers they each deserve. Just as the eBook revoluation has put an always-connected bookstore in the hands of every participating reader, we believe that our rEprint series is an important and innovative part of ensuring that bookstore's virtual shelves are stocked with beautiful editions of these titles, all among the very best books of the preceding decades.

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The Week You Weren't Here

Charles Blackstone

Release Date: October 1, 2011

eBook Price: $7.99

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DESCRIPTION

With a Proustian knack for recalling the smallest detail—from a superficial conversation to the exquisite pain of the perfect kiss—Hunter Flanagan deftly navigates past and present, simultaneously analyzing, deconstructing and torturing himself with memories of every girl he's lost or loved. For Hunter, writing is easy; it's love that comes hard. Even as he prepares to leave family, friends and Chicago—the city that made him—he never gives up on his pursuit of love and meaning. The Week You Weren't Here is a poignant and wry portrait of a young writer closing in on the last of his undergraduate days. Charles Blackstone's prose is a seamless match for Hunter's fragmented stream-of-consciousness. From encounters with the persistent "stalker" Kate, to the elusive Dewey, and the surprisingly independent sorority girl, Lila, Hunter exemplifies our longing for the defining moment—as fragile and quixotic a dream as life itself.

PRAISE

"The Week You Weren't Here is a witty and inventive deconstruction of a young-man-as-artist's pursuit of love among a confusion of choices. It's as if Kafka's Joseph K had been commissioned to write a Dating for Dummies (The How-Not-To version) in the form of a postmodern novel. This is an auspicious debut." —Jonathan Baumbach, author of On the Way to My Father's Funeral
"A coming-of-age story delivered as lightly punctuated stream-of-consciousness... at its best, The Week You Weren't Here achieves the pitch-perfect sensation of a quirky pop song." —Time Out Chicago
"Remarkable...Blackstone gracefully keeps [Hunter Flanagan] tottering on the precipice between romantic hero and irredeemable cad. It's a compelling balancing act to watch... An original voice." —Bookslut
"Charles Blackstone’s writing reminds me of the Kerouac I love and helps me forget the Kerouac I don’t. A story about a young writer smack-dab in the middle of that stage where a person moves from developing several crushes a day to developing several genuine romantic interests each day. Unlike most first novels about struggling writers as lovers, The Week You Weren’t Here is a novel about a struggling lover who writes... Blackstone’s exploration of a questioning mind not only provides you with an understanding of what makes a creative person tick, but also with a well-crafted and enjoyable read. This book reminds me of why I read fiction in the first place." —Consumatron.com
"The book is definitely an interesting and worthwhile read... The Week You Weren't Here has a lot to say about the human condition, and it says it well." —Sidereality
"Blackstone puts a slightly unsettling spin on the chick lit dating yarn, taking the reader inside the mind of aspiring writer and self proclaimed intellectual Hunter Flanagan." —The Big Issue

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

 

Photo credit: Phoebe Gloeckner

Charles Blackstone is the co-editor of The Art of Friction: Where (Non) Fictions Come Together, an anthology of genre-defying short fiction and creative nonfiction, featuring the work of Thomas Beller, Junot Díaz, Jonathan Safran Foer, Kaylie Jones, Achy Obejas, and many more, published in 2008 by the University of Texas Press. His short work has appeared in Esquire, Evergreen Review, The Wall Street Journal, Modern Luxury, and elsewhere. Currently he is Managing Editor of Bookslut and lives in Chicago.