The Undivided Self

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Since the release of his first story collection in 1991, Will Self has been hailed as a master of the short story. Now, for the first time, selected stories from his five highly praised collections will be available in one volume, introduced by Rick Moody. These stories, drawn from The Quantity Theory of Insanity, Gray Area, Tough, Tough Toys for Tough, Tough Boys, Dr. Mukti and Other Tales of Woe, and Liver—plus one story never before published—give us unexpected comic twists, masterful language, and the ordinary colored by the absurd: a man who finds his mother walking in a London suburb ten months after her death; the odd nuances of a drab office worker's daily routine; and a send-up of the British elite that takes place after a carcinogenic fog blankets England. Compared favorably to Nabokov, Pynchon, Gaddis, Ballard, and DeLillo, Will Self is a bold satirist whose selected stories represent some of the best and most outrageous fiction of the last decade.From BooklistDrawing on selections from Self’s five prior short story collections, this volume presents the writer’s 16 most well known stories as well as a previously unpublished one. Readers should be prepared for the onslaught as the author unleashes the full force of his signature style, a manic, precisely worded, and sometimes shocking assault on all the things Self despises. Like fellow Brit Martin Amis, Self sees too clearly and then proceeds to revel in all that is horrible about modern life. Whether it’s the interminable monologues of the fusty anthropologist who spends years studying a tribe whose most discerning feature is that they are boring, in “Understanding the Ur-Bororo,” or the rise and precipitous fall of the drug-dealing brothers who operate in London’s West End in “The Rock of Crack as Big as the Ritz” and “The Nonce Prize,” Self never tires of serving up all that is most depressing about human nature, and he does so in language possessed of such ghastly clarity that there is no escape from his diabolical worldview. As Rick Moody warns in the introduction: “Those who come in search of the traditional humanist epiphany are likely to get a kick in the ass for their trouble.” --Joanne Wilkinson Review“The perfect introduction to the gamut of Self’s darkly comic, verbally dexterous shorter prose. Turning outrageously apt metaphors as few others can, Self could build a career on wit alone. As this outstanding collection amply shows, however, he delivers much more.”—Library Journal“A welcome showcase of short (or shortish) fiction by quirky comic master Self.  Each story is a pleasure. A powerful argument against selflessness, a treat for fans and a grand introduction for those new to the author’s curious view of the universe.”—Kirkus (starred review)