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9780692989319

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Equal parts vulnerability and humor, with a brilliant timing that carried the reader along before any inclination to pass judgment could settle in where it didn't belong. Kudos to Mr. Barber for a first book that leaves me wanting more.--Amazon customer, Marilyn Johnson Humorous, page turning and downright delightful.--Amazon customer, Bikekitty Perceptive yet introspective, he adds just enough to whip the truly mundane up into shocking absurdity, but is gentle enough to tamp the truly shockingly absurd back down to dark humor. Well worth the read.--Amazon customer, Luke Barrett Short stories with characters that are so different. Nate's writing captures vignettes of high school, young adulthood, life in suberbia, and the intricacies of the American family. His power of details helps his sarcasm.--Amazon customer, Maile Getzen Captivating and colorful. The stories had me cycling between belly laughing and melancholy/teary-eyed states, at times within a single paragraph.--Amazon Customer, Wexler Creative, distinctive, amusing -- this collection will leave you wanting to see more from Nathaniel Barber, while being very glad you have this.--HC Newton- The Irresponsible Reader Nathaniel Barber's power lies in telling the story without explicitly telling the story. His prose tugs at the seams, outlines the edges, and hints at a larger, more terrible truth beyond the surface of each piece.--Amazon customer, Scapegoat Barber writes with a flair that makes you wonder if he is actually David Sedaris writing under a pen name, pretending to be part of a younger generation just to taunt us. He looks back on his youth with obvious amusement and faint longing, Barber adeptly mixes unassuming language with a direct tone that leaves readers laughing and crying, often in the same story.--Elizabeth Chabe - The Indent Funny. Sad. Awkward. This book has it all.--Amazon customer, Tammi Draper Anticipation is rewarded with laughter jumping out of unexpected corners or a heartfelt nod of understanding. What a brilliant reminder that life is messy, but worth every minute!--Amazon customer, Robin Falck

Author Information

I was born in San Diego but I remember little of my native city. I remember citrus, as large as my own head. And the sunset-orange beaches littered with black, sea-smoothed rocks. There were the family dogs, two eager and bushy Norwegian Elkhounds. I was just a small child then so the butts of these curl-tailed Norwegian Elkhounds-eye-level and unavoidable-lent an early and impressive lesson about the things you love: to throw yourself at them with pragmatic abandon since it is both right and necessary to love all things, but sensible to keep a watchful eye on the gruesome, sobering details. The air of San Diego was cream-heavy with sea salt and eucalyptus and jasmine. Then, thank God, the Barber family picked up and moved to Lynnwood, Washington just before my fourth birthday. It was one year after the eruption of Mt. Saint Helens when the whole Pacific Northwest, or, at least the rest stops along I-5, seemed still buried in its volcanic ash. It was here I learned about seasons: the blistering-hot and stupid suburban summers and the cruel, humbling soak from mid-September to May. Here I attended schools that varied from fantastically doting schools to schools that seemed to only specialize in the wicked trade of endless loathing, ineptitude and failure. I was lucky to have attended both. There was some little league in there, too. As well as a series of horribly disfiguring bicycle accidents. I followed a girlfriend further north, to Bellingham, Washington. I won a long, hard-fought lawsuit against a pederast and enrolled in college to pursue a useless degree. I eventually married that girlfriend. It was a marriage I jokingly refer to as a 'training wheels' marriage. We graduated college with our useless degrees and promptly divorced so I moved to Portland, Oregon to work myself to the brink of physical and mental exhaustion. Somewhere in there I met the love of my life (sometimes it takes the wrong marriage to illuminate the right one). We live somewhere in North Portland with our daughter who recoils in horror every time I shave off my beard. Some people will warn you away from non-fiction authors. They're rumored to write only non-fiction because they have no imagination and they're foaming with venom for all the perceived wrongs they've suffered. I don't know about all that. I think my stories are beautiful, even if they are humiliating and difficult to tell. I hope my stories are enjoyable. After all, I've worked very hard to make them read okay.

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