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"In the annals of baseball, statistics-freaks love talking about the players who came up from the minors and got a single hit, or two, then retired with a batting average of a thousand," writes Jonathan Lethem, acclaimed writer and guest editor, in his introduction to this issue of Recommended Reading. "Well, I was once party to the writing equivalent -- mystery-man Rob McCleary, who offered up one perfect fluttering knuckleball of a short story, "Nixon in Space," then seemingly evaporated... If you wrote "Nixon In Space" or its equivalent fifty times you'd be George Saunders or Donald Barthelme. Do it just once and you're Rob McCleary, I guess."
"Nixon in Space" revisits a time when the world was consumed by the space race, and everyone, including recently disgraced Richard Nixon, dreamed of going to the moon.
About Recommended Reading:
Great authors inspire us. But what about the stories that inspire them? Recommended Reading, the latest project from Electric Literature, publishes one story every week, each chosen by a great author or editor. In this age of distraction, we uncover writing that's worth slowing down and spending some time with. And in doing so, we help give great writers, literary magazines, and independent presses the recognition (and readership) they deserve.
About the Author:
If Rob McCleary had known Jonathan Lethem liked his work so much at the time he probably would've stuck it out a little longer writing fiction. Instead, he got a job writing Saturday morning cartoons. His new work of fiction "Diary Of A Skyway Woman" (or) "My Life in the Service of the Ohio Top Superstar Academy of Aerial Arts Correspondence Flight School & Mobile Beastiarium" is available on iTunes for the irresistibly low price of $1.99 for the month of July to celebrate the zombie-like resurrection of "Nixon In Space." He is currently working on a new young adult novel about a girl who creates an army of revenge-exacting, homicidal freaks called "Ballerina Frankenstein."
About the Guest Editor:
Jonathan Lethem is the author of seven novels including Fortress of Solitude and Motherless Brooklyn, which was named Novel of the Year by Esquire and won the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Salon Book Award, as well as the Macallan Crime Writers Association Gold Dagger. He has also written two short story collections, a novella and a collection of essays, edited The Vintage Book of Amnesia, guest-edited The Year's Best Music Writing 2002, and was the founding fiction editor of Fence magazine. His writings have appeared in the New Yorker, Rolling Stone, McSweeney's and many other periodicals.
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