Tom Bissell

"From the best-selling author of The Disaster Artist, a new collection of stories that range from laugh-out-loud funny to disturbingly dark--unflinching portraits of people struggling to bridge the gap between art and life. A young and ingratiating assistant to a movie star makes a blunder that puts his boss and a major studio at grave risk. A writer and his wife hire a partner for a threesome to rejuvenate their relationship after the birth of their child. An assistant at a prestigious literary journal reconnects with a middle school frenemy and finds his carefully constructed world of refinement cannot protect him from his past. In these and other stories, Tom Bissell vividly renders the complex worlds of characters on the brink of artistic and personal crisis - writers, actors, and other creative types who see things slightly differently than the rest of us do. Surreal, poignant, squirmingly awkward--and always just a little bit off--this collection is a brilliant new offering from one of the most versatile and talented writers in America today"--