{"product_id":"9781416559764","title":"Music Through the Floor: Stories","description":"With \u003ci\u003eMusic Through the Floor, \u003c\/i\u003ePushcart Prize winner and former Wallace Stegner Fellow Eric Puchner makes an extraordinary debut: a collection of nine unforgettable stories -- strikingly original, fiercely funny, and quietly heartbreaking -- portraying a group of cultural misfits attempting to navigate mainstream America. \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Lost, teetering on the edge of normalcy, Puchner's characters seek to define themselves in a frequently absurd and hostile world -- a world that threatens to make outcasts of us all. Caught up in loneliness or solitude, they can't quite hear the music of their own lives. \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e In \"Children of God,\" a young loner becomes the caretaker and companion for two mentally retarded men, seeking solace in their outsider status. \"Essay #3: Leda and the Swan\" is told in the forlorn, be-nighted, and tragically funny voice of a high school girl who longs more than anything to be loved. In \"Mission,\" an idealistic ESL teacher is faced with the inscrutable wrath of one of his immigrant students. And in the unsettling \"Child's Play,\" Puchner explores the price of nonconformity by following a pack of boys wreaking havoc on Halloween. \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Writing from an impressive range of perspectives -- men and women, children and adults, immigrants and tourists -- Puchner deftly exposes the dark, ten-der undersides of his characters with arresting beauty and precision. Here are people fumbling for identity in a depersonalized world, captured in moments that are hilarious, shocking, and transcendent -- sometimes all at once. Unfailingly true, surprisingly moving, and impossible to forget, these nine stories mark the arrival of a brilliant young writer and one of our most promising literary voices.","brand":"Scribner","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47138465906928,"sku":"9781416559764","price":9.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9781416559764_p0.jpg?v=1769898325","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9781416559764","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}