Three short novellas comprise a unique collection of academic satire, in which a couple struggles with their tenure-track commuter marriage, an anthropologist witnesses a bizarre druidic ritual, and a junior history professor must defend her ideology and her life.

Publish and Perish: Three Tales of Tenure and Terror

Literature & Fiction

Hynes, James

United States

Picador USA

A New York Times Notable Book of the Year A Publisher's Weekly Best Book of the Year
Combining the wit of David Lodge with Poe's delicious sense of the macabre, these are three witty, spooky novellas of satire set in academia―a world where Derrida rules, love is a "complicated ideological position," and poetic justice is served with an ideological twist.

Humor & Satire

Picador

The author of Publish and Perish returns with a Faustian tale of the horrors of academe Nelson Humbolt is a visiting adjunct English lecturer at prestigious Midwest University, until he is unceremoniously fired one autumn morning. Minutes after the axe falls, his right index finger is severed in a freak accident. Doctors manage to reattach the finger, but when the bandages come off, Nelson realizes that he has acquired a strange power--he can force his will onto others with a touch of his finger. And so he obtains an extension on the lease of his university-owned townhouse and picks up two sections of freshman composition, saving his career from utter ruin. But soon these victories seem inconsequential, and Nelson's finger burns for even greater glory. Now the Midas of academia wonders if he can attain what every struggling assistant professor and visiting lecturer covets--tenure. A pitch-perfect blend of satire and horror, The Lecturer's Tale paints a gruesomely clever portrait of life in academia.

The Lecturer's Tale: A Novel

The Wild Colonial Boy: A Novel

After years of violence, a tense calm pervades Northern Ireland, soon to be broken by Jimmy Coogan, an IRA veteran gone renegade. Jimmy has stolen ten pounds of plastic explosive, intending to destroy the parliamentary ambitions of the IRA leadership. 
Into Jimmy's turbulent world come two young Americans: Brian, vain, ironic, but well-meaning; and Clare, a beautiful, earnest college student. In Ireland on an errand for his Irish Republican family in Detroit, Brian is recruited to Jimmy's bloody mission by his cousin Maire, Coogan's sharp-tongued wife. Soon they are all drawn into the unforgiving labyrinth of modern terrorism, borne toward a horrific and fatal climax.

Nelson Humboldt is a visiting adjunct English lecturer at prestigious Midwest University, until he is unceremoniously fired one autumn morning. Minutes after the axe falls, his right index finger is severed in a freak accident. Doctors manage to reattach

Humor & Entertainment

Humor

Kings of Infinite Space: A Novel

"Immensely witty...thoroughly entertaining."--The Washington Post Book World
Paul Trilby is having a bad day. If he were to be honest with himself, Paul Trilby would have to admit that he's having a bad life. His wife left him. Three subsequent girlfriends left him. He's fallen from a top-notch university teaching job, to a textbook publisher, to, eventually, working as a temp writer for the Texas Department of General Services. And even here, in this land of carpeted partitions and cheap lighting fixtures, Paul cannot escape the curse his life has become. For it is not until he begins a tentative romance with the office's sassy mail girl that he begins to notice things are truly wrong. Strange sounds come from the air conditioning vents, the ceiling bulges, a body disappears. Mysterious men lurk about town, wearing thick glasses and pocket protectors...
Kings of Infinite Space is a hilarious and horrifying spoof on our everyday lives and gives true voice to the old adage, "Work is Hell."

Paul Trilby is having a bad day. If he were to be honest with himself, Paul Trilby would have to admit that he's having a bad life. His wife left him. Three subsequent girlfriends left him. He's fallen from a top-notch university teaching job, to a textbook publisher, to, eventually, working as a temp writer for the General Services department of the Texas Department of General Services. And even here, in this world of carpeted partitions and cheap lighting fixtures, Paul cannot escape the curse his life has become. For it is not until he begins reach out to the office's foul-mouthed mail girl that he begins to notice things are truly wrong. There are sounds coming from the air conditioning vents, bulges in the ceiling, a disappearing body. There are the strange men lurking about town, wearing thick glasses and pocket protectors. The Kings of Infinite Space is a hilarious and macabre spoof on our everyday lives, and gives true voice to the old adage, "Work is Hell."

Science Fiction & Fantasy

St.Martin's Press

One Man, one day, and a novel bursting with drama, comedy, and humanity. Kevin Quinn is a standard-variety American male: middle-aged, liberal-leaning, self-centered, emotionally damaged, generally determined to avoid both pain and responsibility. As his relationship with his girlfriend approaches a turning point, and his career seems increasingly pointless, he decides to secretly fly to a job interview in Austin, Texas. Aboard the plane, Kevin is simultaneously attracted to the young woman in the seat next to him and panicked by a new wave of terrorism in Europe and the UK. He lands safely with neuroses intact and full of hope that the job, the expansive city, and the girl from the plane might yet be his chance for reinvention. His next eight hours make up this novel, a tour-de-force of mordant humor, brilliant observation, and page-turning storytelling.

Next: A Novel

Reagan Arthur Books

Kevin Quinn is a standard-variety American male: middle-aged, liberal-leaning, self-centered, emotionally damaged, generally determined to avoid both pain and responsibility. As his relationship with his girlfriend approaches a turning point, and his career seems increasingly pointless, he decides to secretly fly to a job interview in Austin, Texas. Aboard the plane, Kevin is simultaneously attracted to the young woman in the seat next to him and panicked by a new wave of terrorism in Europe and the UK. He lands safely with neuroses intact and full of hope that the job, the expansive city, and the girl from the plane might yet be his chance for reinvention. His next eight hours make up this novel, a tour-de-force of mordant humor, brilliant observation, and page-turning storytelling.

Back Bay Books

In an embattled province in Northern Ireland, four individuals--Jimmy Coogan, an IRA veteran hungering for a resurgence of violence, and Maire, Brian and Claire--are drawn into a world of modern terrorism

Atheneum

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

Books by Hynes, James

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

Publish and Perish: Three Tales of Tenure and Terror

Publish and Perish: Three Tales of Tenure and Terror

The Lecturer's Tale: A Novel

The Wild Colonial Boy: A Novel

The Lecturer's Tale: A Novel

Kings of Infinite Space: A Novel

Kings of Infinite Space: A Novel

Next: A Novel

Next: A Novel

The Wild Colonial Boy: A Novel