In 1963, when Lois Kulwicki's father loses his job at Studebaker along with hundreds of other workers, he acts as if he has just been promoted. He buys a new car (the only non-Studebaker he's ever purchased) and takes his family on vacation. On the way home, Mom dumps Dad at a Stuckey's, and that's the last they see of him.
Thirty years later, Lois has a family of her own, as fractured as her childhood family. Divorced but still living with her ex, she decides to move out with her two daughters and start over but then a stranger named Henry enters their lives. Out of this ersatz family, Lois tries to recover something of what she lost, beginning with a search for her abandoned father. The Last Studebaker is a warmly comic tale of lives changed forever, after the last Studebaker rolled off of the assembly line.

The Last Studebaker: A Novel (Break Away Books)

Literature & Fiction

Hemley, Robin

Contemporary

Indiana University Press

Reply All, the third collection of award-winning and widely anthologized short stories by Robin Hemley, takes a humorous, edgy, and frank look at the human art of deception and self-deception. A father accepts, without question, the many duplicate saint relics that appear in front of his cave everyday; a translator tricks Magellan by falsely translating a local chief’s words of welcome; an apple salesman a long way from home thinks he’s fallen in love; a search committee believes in its own nobility by hiring a minority writer; a cheating couple broadcast their affair to an entire listserv; a talk show host interviews the dead and hopes to learn their secrets. The ways in which humans fool themselves are infinite, and while these stories illustrate this sad fact in sometimes excruciating detail, the aim is not to skewer the misdirected, but to commiserate with them and blush in recognition.

Reply All: Stories (Break Away Books)

United States

Robin Hemley's childhood made a wedgie of his memory, leaving him sore and embarrassed for over forty years. He was the most pitiful kindergartner, the least spirited summer camper, and dateless for prom. In fact, there's nary an event from his youth that couldn't use improvement. If only he could do them all over a few decades later, with an adult's wisdom, perspective, and giant-like height . . . In the spirit of cult film classics like Billy Madison and Wet Hot American Summer, in Do-Over! Hemley reencounters papier-mâché, revisits his childhood home, and finally attends the prom -- bringing readers the thrill of recapturing a misspent youth and discovering what's most important: simple pleasures, second chances, and the forgotten joys of recess.

Do-Over! In Which a Forty-Eight-Year-Old Father of Three Returns to Kindergarten, Summer Camp, the Prom, and Other Embarrassments

Humor & Entertainment

Humor

Little. Brown and Company

This anthology surveys the most thought-provoking and noteworthy non-traditional#148 short stories written by American and international writers over the past 100 years. The works collected here represent a rich, while often overlooked, tradition of stories that seem to break the rules of short fiction. These stories, by well-known writers as well as by refreshingly new voices, demonstrate a wide-range of stylistic and narrative diversity. They expand our perceptions of what constitutes a well-written short story and underscore the unlimited techniques writers use to achieve a desired effect.

Extreme Fiction: Fabulists and Formalists

Martone, Michael

History & Criticism

Pearson

The riveting story of a modern Piltdown hoax—which may not have been a hoax at all In 1971, a band of twenty-six “Stone Age” rain-forest dwellers was discovered living in total isolation by Manuel Elizalde, a Philippine government minister with a dubious background. The tribe was soon featured in nightly American newscasts and graced the cover of National Geographic. They were visited by such celebrities as Charles Lindbergh and Gina Lollobrigida. But after a series of aborted anthropological forays, the 45,000-acre Tasaday Reserve established by Ferdinand Marcos was closed to all visitors, and the tribe vanished from public view. Fast-forward twelve years. A Swiss reporter hikes into the area and discovers that the Tasaday were actually farmers who had been coerced by Elizalde into dressing in leaves and posing in caves with stone tools. Soon the “anthropological find of the century” has become the “ethnographic hoax of the century.” Or maybe not. Robin Hemley tells a story that is more complex than either the hoax proponents or the Tasaday advocates might care to admit. At the center of it is a group of very poor people who have been buffeted by forces beyond their control. Were the Tasaday the creation of gullible journalists, bumbling scientists, and an ego-driven madman, or were they the innocent victims of cynical academics and politicos? In answering that question, Hemley has written a gripping and ultimately tragic tale of innocence found, lost, and found again.

Invented Eden: The Elusive, Disputed History of the Tasaday

History

Asia

Farrar. Straus and Giroux

All You Can Eat

A collection of 13 short stories which focus on the various delusions and distractions people use to ward off pain - the sentiment that coats the cracks in a marriage, bizarre funeral rites for a dead husband and a lover in need of air who goes walking in the rain.

Short Stories & Anthologies

Arrow (A Division of Random House Group)

In 1971 Manual Elizalde, a Philippine government minister with a dubious background, discovered a band of twenty-six “Stone Age” rain-forest dwellers living in total isolation. The tribe was soon featured in American newscasts and graced the cover of National Geographic. But after a series of aborted anthropological ventures, the Tasaday Reserve established by Ferdinand Marcos was closed to visitors, and the tribe vanished from public view. 
Twelve years later, a Swiss reporter hiked into the area and discovered that the Tasaday were actually farmers whom Elizalde had coerced into dressing in leaves and posing with stone tools. The “anthropological find of the century” had become the “ethnographic hoax of the century.” Or maybe not. Robin Hemley tells a story that is more complex than either the hoax proponents or the authenticity advocates might care to admit. It is a gripping and ultimately tragic tale of innocence found, lost, and found again. The author provides an afterword for this Bison Books edition.

Bison Books

For centuries writers have used participatory experience as a lens through which to better see the world at large and as a means of exploring the self. Considering various types of participatory writing as different strains of one style―immersion writing―Robin Hemley offers new perspectives and practical advice for writers of this nonfiction genre.
Immersion writing can be broken down into the broad categories of travel writing, immersion memoir, and immersion journalism. Using the work of such authors as Barbara Ehrenreich, Hunter S. Thompson, Ted Conover, A. J. Jacobs, Nellie Bly, Julio Cortazar, and James Agee, Hemley examines these three major types of immersion writing and further identifies the subcategories of the quest, the experiment, the investigation, the infiltration, and the reenactment. Included in the book are helpful exercises, models for immersion writing, and a chapter on one of the most fraught subjects for nonfiction writers―the ethics and legalities of writing about other people.
A Field Guide for Immersion Writing recalibrates and redefines the way writers approach their relationship to their subjects. Suitable for beginners and advanced writers, the book provides an enlightening, provocative, and often amusing look at the ways in which nonfiction writers engage with the world around them.
A Friends Fund Publication.

A Field Guide for Immersion Writing: Memoir, Journalism, and Travel

Reference

Words, Language & Grammar

University of Georgia Press

For centuries writers have used participatory experience as a lens through which to better see the world at large and as a means of exploring the self. Considering various types of participatory writing as different strains of one style―immersion writing―Robin Hemley offers new perspectives and practical advice for writers of this nonfiction genre. Immersion writing can be broken down into the broad categories of travel writing, immersion memoir, and immersion journalism. Using the work of such authors as Barbara Ehrenreich, Hunter S. Thompson, Ted Conover, A. J. Jacobs, Nellie Bly, Julio Cortazar, and James Agee, Hemley examines these three major types of immersion writing and further identifies the subcategories of the quest, the experiment, the investigation, the infiltration, and the reenactment. Included in the book are helpful exercises, models for immersion writing, and a chapter on one of the most fraught subjects for nonfiction writers―the ethics and legalities of writing about other people. A Field Guide for Immersion Writing recalibrates and redefines the way writers approach their relationship to their subjects. Suitable for beginners and advanced writers, the book provides an enlightening, provocative, and often amusing look at the ways in which nonfiction writers engage with the world around them. A Friends Fund Publication.

Stories deal with lovers' quarrels, maturing children, struggling loners, a widow's unique mourning, and a teenager visiting an elderly aunt

All You Can Eat Stories

Atlantic Monthly Pr

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Hemley, Robin. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Hemley, Robin

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Hemley, Robin. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Last Studebaker: A Novel (Break Away Books)

Reply All: Stories (Break Away Books)

Do-Over! In Which a Forty-Eight-Year-Old Father of Three Returns to Kindergarten, Summer Camp, the Prom, and Other Embarrassments

Extreme Fiction: Fabulists and Formalists

Invented Eden: The Elusive, Disputed History of the Tasaday

All You Can Eat

Invented Eden: The Elusive, Disputed History of the Tasaday

A Field Guide for Immersion Writing: Memoir, Journalism, and Travel

A Field Guide for Immersion Writing: Memoir, Journalism, and Travel

All You Can Eat Stories