Ladies and Gentlemen
  • Published: 5 January 2012
  • ISBN: 9781409041054
  • Imprint: Vintage Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 256

Ladies and Gentlemen

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Following his celebrated debut novel, Mr. Peanut, Adam Ross presents a darkly compelling collection of stories about brothers, loners, lovers and young people navigating lives full of good intentions, misunderstandings and obscured motives.

A hotshot young lawyer, burdened by years of guilt and resentment, comes to the aid of his irresponsible kid brother, only to realise he's a pawn in a treacherous scheme. A lonely professor, frequently regaled with outrageous tales by the office handyman, suddenly fears he's being asked to abet a murderous fugitive. A man down on his luck closes in on a mysterious job offer while doing a good turn for his fragile neighbour, but his efforts backfire in a terrifically surreal - and hilarious - manner. Four college kids goad each other on in a series of escalating dares, culminating in a result as ambiguous as it is tragic. An enterprising adolescence uses his brief career as a child actor to fulfil the crush he has on a friend's seemingly untouchable older sister.

Laced throughout with glimmers of redemption and a refreshing combination of warmth and cynicism, these noirish narratives have a youthful energy that belies their hard-won wisdom, and together they showcase one of our most outstanding new writers.
  • Published: 5 January 2012
  • ISBN: 9781409041054
  • Imprint: Vintage Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 256
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About the author

Adam Ross

Adam Ross was born in New York and studied writing with William Gass and Stanley Elkin. He worked as a journalist and teacher but now writes full-time and lives with his wife and two daughters in Nashville, Tennessee. His first novel, Mr. Peanut, was published by Jonathan Cape in 2010.

Also by Adam Ross

Mr. Peanut
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Praise for Ladies and Gentlemen

If you like short stories with a sharp twist in the tale, Adam Ross' astringent collection will be perfectly to your taste

Daily Mail

One of our truly essential new writers

GQ

Ross is a gifted writer with a soft spot for the kind of stop - you - in - your - tracks twists that will have readers dropping their cups of tea, slow-mo, into their laps

Alice Wylie, Scotland on Sunday

Ross is the kind of writer who gets into his often-dysfunctional characters' heads with ease and inhabits them with compassion, giving them a sense of vulnerability... His prose has a pleasing ease to it, without being easy - there's an edge to the worlds he creates that rewards closer reading and prevents sentimentality or predictability. Definitely one to watch

Lesley McDowell, The Herald

Ten years ago the American short story was in decline. Now it is once again a vital genre

Ruth Franklin, Prospect

Vivid depictions of modern anxiety and a lament to humankind's waning attachment to commitment, deftly told by one of the most accomplished new writers working in the US today

Yasmin Sulaiman, The List

Witty and well-shaped short-story collection... Ross charts the progress of his characters' disillusionment with a compelling mixture of sympathy and ironic detachment

Nick Rennison, Sunday Times