David Berman reinvents the overlooked and seemingly ordinary details of everyday life--from the suitcase of a departing girlfriend to a baseboard electrical outlet. His poems chart a course through his own highly original American dreamscape in language that is fresh, accessible, and remarkably precise. This debut collection has received extraordinary acclaim from readers and reviewers alike and is quickly becoming a cult classic. As Pulitzer Prize-winning poet James Tate said, "These poems are beautiful, strange, intelligent, and funny. . . . It's a book for everyone."

Actual Air

Literature & Fiction

Berman, David

Poetry

Grove Press, Open City Books

The most important new literary journal to emerge since Granta, Open City has published some of the best work by major writers and artists such as Mary Gaitskill, Denis Johnson, Jeff Koons, David Foster Wallace, Irvine Welsh, Terry Southern, Patrick McCabe, Sam Lipsyte, and David Berman. Edited by the writers Thomas Beller and Daniel Pinchbeck and originally published by the late Robert Bingham, writing from Open City has been included in many prestigious anthologies, including Best American Short Stories and The Pushcart Prize. Known for launching the careers of today's best new writers, the editors are also committed to printing important unpublished work by writers from past eras, such as Richard Yates, Delmore Schwartz, Jim Thompson, Cyril Connolly, Edvard Munch, and Gregor von Rezzori. With its innovative and daring mix of the old and the new, Open City combines undiscovered writing by classic authors with a fascinating portrait of a literary generation in the making.

Open City, #6: The Only Woman He Ever Left

MICHAEL CUNNINGHAM

Rem Koolhaas

David Means

James Purdy

Jocko Weyland

Rick Moody

Deborah Garrison

Thomas Beller

Monica Lewinsky

Strawberry Saroyan

Contemporary

From the peep palaces of Times Square to the cubicles of corporate America, Sam Lipsyte's stories wander a dark, comic road full of need and regret. His damaged, searching narrators deliver their reports of addiction, lust, loneliness, grief, and the doomed dream of rock 'n' roll with a sly lyricism and eerie spareness that somehow redeem them. Listen to this chorus of gallows humor and goodwill sometimes gone bad and hear wild voices rise out of the din of city living: Gary is a failed punk icon turned petty drug dealer and amateur self- actualization guru; the Chersky girl makes a strange midnight discovery roller-skating through a Depression-era morgue. Pot-dazed Trotskyists, summer-camp sadists, and babysitters with an eye toward erotic humiliation also make themselves known in the lost, shattered landscapes of Lipsyte's fictions. "When you have an old soul like I do," deadpans one hero, "everything gets old really quick. Nothing is new. An avocado, a glass of beer, everything tastes like it's been sitting out on a table too long." These stories, loosely linked in character and setting, recall the stark realism of Denis Johnson and the wild humor of Barry Hannah. In these poignant, sharp-witted tales, Sam Lipsyte proves himself one of today's most visceral and fearless short-story writers.

Venus Drive

LIPSYTE, SAM

United States

Meghan Daum is one of the most celebrated nonfiction writers of her generation, widely recognized for the fresh, provocative approach with which she unearths hidden fault lines in the American landscape. From her well-remembered New Yorker essays about the financial demands of big-city ambition and the ethereal, strangely old-fashioned allure of cyber relationships to her dazzlingly hilarious riff in Harper's about musical passions that give way to middle-brow paraphernalia, Daum delves into the center of things while closely examining the detritus that spills out along the way. She speaks to questions at the root of the contemporary experience, from the search for authenticity and interpersonal connection in a society defined by consumerism and media; to the disenchantment of working in a "glamour profession"; to the catastrophic effects of living among New York City's terminal hipsters. With precision and well-balanced irony, Daum implicates herself as readily as she does the targets that fascinate and horrify her. In a review of The KGB Bar Reader, in which Daphne Merkin singled out Daum's essay about the inability to mourn a friend's death, Merkin wrote: "It's brutally quick, the way this happens, this falling in love with a writer's style. Daum's story hooked me by the second line. Hmm, I thought, this is a writer worth suspending my routines for."

My Misspent Youth: Essays

History

Daum, Meghan

Americas

Open City is a rare contemporary phenomenon: a literary journal that gets people talking about literature. A dynamic mix of prominent writers, undiscovered aspirants, and lost treasures from writers of past eras, Open City includes fiction, essays, poetry, and artwork by a dynamic range of talents. The journal has brought together writing from Michael Cunningham, Nick Tosches, Rick Moody, David Foster Wallace, David Mamet, Sam Lipsyte, Meghan Daum, and David Berman, and previously unpublished work by Delmore Schwartz, Richard Yates, Edvard Munch, and Ford Madox Ford. Praised in the pages of publications such as Time Out New York, Harper's Bazaar, The Library Journal, and The New York Times, Open City is today's most vibrant and exciting literary journal. Open City #15 features Craig Chester on sexual identity at camp; new work from John McNulty; Toru Hayashi's memoirs of a travel agent. Plus Tom Frank's stock picks, and more. "Open City takes the old literary magazine format and revitalizes it for a new generation's tastes." -- Library Journal

Open City #15

Cameron, Martin

Lara Vapnyar

James-Lasdun

alicia-erian

Amine Wefali

Dean Wareham

Rebecca Reynolds

In our era of apocalyptic change, everything from terrorism to a stifling cultural sameness has become globalized. World on Fire is a poet's impassioned, prophetic examination of the human and environmental consequences of transnational capitalism. From the most recent developments in biotechnology to the brainwashing effects of mass media, from the addictive rush of global currency speculation to the rapid-fire annihilation of tropical forests for chopsticks and oil, World on Fire is unsparing in its exposure of the corruption of our contemporary empire, or "Pax Americana." It suggests, paradoxically, that in this much-heralded "Age of Information," the dominant paradigms are disconnection and amnesia. The death of the author's tyrannical father after years of suffering from Alzheimer's becomes a potent symbol for a culture unable to face its own crimes or reckon with its own history. Drawing on sources including Noam Chomsky, Eduardo Galeano, and Vandana Shiva, Brownstein has created a new form combining poetry, personal narrative, and social analysis. He incites readers to look past a standardized remote-control world order and reconsider non-Western, more holistic social models. An anthem, manifesto, and call to arms, World on Fire asks the reader to step outside of ego's bomb shelter and face world upheaval without fear, thereby transforming disaster into opportunity and allowing the space for the creation of a new life. This is a stunning and timely work from a writer who "combines an acute understanding of the human soul with a bold, poetic imagination" (Paul Auster on Brownstein's story collection Music from the Evening of the World).

World on Fire

Brownstein, Michael

Essays & Correspondence

Open City features today's best new fiction, poetry, and artwork -- by both emerging and established talents. Past issues have featured Pulitzer Prize winner Michael Cunningham, acclaimed anthropologist Michael Taussig, and Irvine Welsh's debut U.S. publication. Deborah Garrison, Joyce Johnson, Mary Gaitskill, David Foster Wallace, Terry Southern, and Rick Moody have also graced Open City's pages. Known for launching the careers of a dynamic range of new writers, Open City presents a fascinating portrait of a literary generation in the making. Open City #16 includes stories by Alicia Erian, Ryan Kenealy, Michiko Okubo, and Nico Baumbach, art by Louise Belcourt, Roe Ethridge, and Amy Hill, and poetry by David Berman. "Open City showcases the literature of tomorrow today." -- Los Angeles Times "Intelligent and accessible ... a hip, urban aesthetic." -- Poets and Writers "Open City takes the old literary magazine format and revitalizes it for a new generation's tastes." -- Library Journal "Ambitiously highbrow." -- The New York Times "An athletic balance of hipster glamour and highbrow esoterica." -- The Village Voice

I Married an Artist (Open City #16)

Nick Tosches

Robert Bingham

Dana Goodyear

Rick Rofihe

Open City is a rare contemporary phenomenon: a literary journal that gets people talking about literature, with contributions from a dynamic mix of prominent writers, undiscovered aspirants, and lost treasures by writers from past eras. From Edvard Munch's journals to Terry Southern's screenplays to Rick Moody's poetry to Michael Cunningham's essays to Mary Gaitskill's short stories, Open City features an exciting range of talents, with an edgy style and wit not to be found in any other literary journal. Volume Number 17 contains stories by Jack Walls, Adrian Dannatt, and Siobhan Reagan; poetry by Nathaniel Bellows, Heidi Kujac, and Daniel Nester; and art by Matthew Higgs, Delia Brown, and Kerry Tribe. "Open City showcases the literature of tomorrow today." -- Los Angeles Times

Open City No. 17, Summer 2003 (Open City, 17)

C.K. Williams

Carolyn Forché

Chuck Kinder

Mark Jude Poirer

Literary

Open City Magazine, the best-selling literary journal since Granta, features a dynamic mix of prominent writers, undiscovered aspirants, and lost treasures from writers from past eras. Open City #19 features stories by Robert Bingham (the original, unpublished first chapter of his novel, Lightning on the Sun), Rick Rofihe, Cannon Thomas, Nick Tosches, Michael Sledge, Lewis Robinson, Deborah Shapiro, and Evan Harris.

Open City #19

The best place to look for the classic authors of tomorrow, Open City is crucial for readers who want to stay on the cutting edge of the literary world. With a youthful sense of style and humor unusual among most serious literary journals, the stories and poetry featured here are all at once delightful, entertaining, thought provoking, and moving. Open City was founded by the writers Robert Bingham, Thomas Beller, and Daniel Pinchbeck and is edited by Thomas Beller and Joanna Yas. Open City #21 features poetry by Nick Tosches, Chris Stroffolino, and Crystal Curry; stories by Rachel Blake, Susan Chamandy, Bret Anthony Johnston, and Leslie Dormen; artwork by Mark Solotroff, Marcellus Hall, and Stu Mead; and a special section: Writing from the Southern Cone (Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, and Brazil).

Open City, #21: Winter 2005-2006

Open City Magazine

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Books by Grove Press, Open City Books