Fakes
eBook - ePub

Fakes

An Anthology of Pseudo-Interviews, Faux-Lectures, Quasi-Letters, "Found" Texts, and Other Fraudulent Artifacts

  1. English
  2. ePUB (mobile friendly)
  3. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub

Fakes

An Anthology of Pseudo-Interviews, Faux-Lectures, Quasi-Letters, "Found" Texts, and Other Fraudulent Artifacts

About this book

Contemporary short stories enacting giddy, witty revenge on the documents that define and dominate our lives.

In our bureaucratized culture, we're inundated by documents: itineraries, instruction manuals, permit forms, primers, letters of complaint, end-of-year reports, accidentally forwarded email, traffic updates, ad infinitum. David Shields and Matthew Vollmer, both writers and professors, have gathered forty short fictions that they've found to be seriously hilarious and irresistibly teachable (in both writing and literature courses): counterfeit texts that capture the barely suppressed frustration and yearning that percolate just below the surface of most official documents. The innovative stories collected in Fakes—including ones by Ron Carlson (a personal ad), Amy Hempel (a complaint to the parking department), Rick Moody (Works Cited), and Lydia Davis (a letter to a funeral parlor)—trace the increasingly blurry line between fact and fiction and exemplify a crucial form for the twenty-first century.

Frequently asked questions

Yes, you can cancel anytime from the Subscription tab in your account settings on the Perlego website. Your subscription will stay active until the end of your current billing period. Learn how to cancel your subscription.
No, books cannot be downloaded as external files, such as PDFs, for use outside of Perlego. However, you can download books within the Perlego app for offline reading on mobile or tablet. Learn more here.
Perlego offers two plans: Essential and Complete
  • Essential is ideal for learners and professionals who enjoy exploring a wide range of subjects. Access the Essential Library with 800,000+ trusted titles and best-sellers across business, personal growth, and the humanities. Includes unlimited reading time and Standard Read Aloud voice.
  • Complete: Perfect for advanced learners and researchers needing full, unrestricted access. Unlock 1.4M+ books across hundreds of subjects, including academic and specialized titles. The Complete Plan also includes advanced features like Premium Read Aloud and Research Assistant.
Both plans are available with monthly, semester, or annual billing cycles.
We are an online textbook subscription service, where you can get access to an entire online library for less than the price of a single book per month. With over 1 million books across 1000+ topics, we’ve got you covered! Learn more here.
Look out for the read-aloud symbol on your next book to see if you can listen to it. The read-aloud tool reads text aloud for you, highlighting the text as it is being read. You can pause it, speed it up and slow it down. Learn more here.
Yes! You can use the Perlego app on both iOS or Android devices to read anytime, anywhere — even offline. Perfect for commutes or when you’re on the go.
Please note we cannot support devices running on iOS 13 and Android 7 or earlier. Learn more about using the app.
Yes, you can access Fakes by David Shields,Matthew Vollmer in PDF and/or ePUB format. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Information

Publisher
W. W. Norton & Company
Year
2025
eBook ISBN
9780393346060
Subtopic
Science Fiction

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Also by
  3. Title Page
  4. Contents
  5. Introduction
  6. 1. “Disclaimer” David Means
  7. 2. “I CAN SPEAK!™” George Saunders
  8. 3. Some Instructions to My Wife Concerning the Upkeep of the House and Marriage, and to My Son and Daughter Concerning the Conduct of Their Childhood (excerpt) Stanley Crawford
  9. 4. “One Thousand Words on Why You Should Not Talk During a Fire Drill” Mark Halliday
  10. 5. “Problems for Self-Study” Charles Yu
  11. 6. “Permission Slip” Caron A. Levis
  12. 7. “How to Become a Writer” Lorrie Moore
  13. 8. “The Dead Sister Handbook: A Guide for Sensitive Boys (Laconic Method to Near Misses)” Kevin Wilson
  14. 9. “Interview with a Moron” Elizabeth Stuckey-French
  15. 10. “Reference #388475848-5” Amy Hempel
  16. 11. “The Explanation” Donald Barthelme
  17. 12. Letters to Wendy’s (excerpt) Joe Wenderoth
  18. 13. “This Is Just to Say That I’m Tired of Sharing an Apartment with William Carlos Williams” Laura Jayne Martin
  19. 14. “Single Woman for Long Walks on the Beach” Ron Carlson
  20. 15. “My Beard, Reviewed” Chris Bachelder
  21. 16. “The Varieties of Romantic Experience: An Introduction”
  22. 17. “Vis à Vis Love” Mieke Eerkens
  23. 18. “Practice Problem” Joseph Salvatore
  24. 19. “Officers Weep” Daniel Orozco
  25. 20. “Subtotals” Greg Burnham
  26. 21. “Our Spring Catalog” Jack Pendarvis
  27. 22. “Reply All” Robin Hemley
  28. 23. “Chaucer Tweets the South by Southwest Festival” Kari Anne Roy
  29. 24. “Iconographic Conventions of Pre- and Early Renaissance: Italian Representations of the Flagellation of Christ” Rachel B. Glaser
  30. 25. “The Human Side of Instrumental Transcommunication” Wendy Brenner
  31. 26. “Class Notes” Lucas Cooper
  32. 27. “Dear Stephen Hawking” Samantha Hunt
  33. 28. “National Treasures” Charles McLeod
  34. 29. “Discarded Notions” Matthew Williamson
  35. 30. “Star Lake Letters” Arda Collins
  36. 31. “Life Story” David Shields
  37. 32. “Instructions for Extinction” Melanie Rae Thon
  38. 33. “Will & Testament” Matthew Vollmer
  39. 34. “Letter to a Funeral Parlor” Lydia Davis
  40. 35. “Acknowledgments” Paul Theroux
  41. 36. “Primary Sources” Rick Moody
  42. 37. “Contributor’s Note” Michael Martone
  43. 38. “The Year’s Best Fiction 2008: The Authors Speak” J. Robert Lennon
  44. 39. “About the Typefaces Not Used in This Edition” Jonathan Safran Foer
  45. 40. “The Index” J. G. Ballard
  46. Further Reading
  47. Permissions Acknowledgments
  48. Copyright