‘Someone Who Will Love You In All Your Damaged Glory’ by Raphael Bob-Waksberg
WHO: Raphael Bob-Waksberg
WHAT: SOMEONE WHO WILL LOVE YOU IN ALL YOUR DAMAGED GLORY, stories
WHEN: Published by Knopf June 11, 2019
WHERE: The author lives in Los Angeles.
WHY: “A savage sendup of love in all its dubious glory.
“Eighteen sometimes-whimsical, sometimes-biting short fictions from the creator of Netflix’s BoJack Horseman. This offbeat collection of bad romances will be a treat for fans of Bob-Waksberg’s animated cult comedy. It opens with a disastrous date in ‘Salted Circus Cashews, Swear to God,’ which uses both typography and tension to land its unresolved ending. There’s a dash of Welcome to Night Vale in a longer selection, ‘A Most Blessed and Auspicious Occasion,’ in which the happy couple getting married must wrestle with how many goats to sacrifice.
“Elsewhere, we find an uncomfortable reunion in ‘These Are Facts’… a collection of mundane superheroes in ‘up-and-comers,’… a scathing satire of professional theater in ‘You Want to Know What Plays Are Like?’… a list of premises in ‘”You’re not like other girls” he said to every girl’… the deeply uncomfortable ‘Lies We Told Each Other (A Partial List),’ which ends with ‘I love you too’; ‘Lunch with the Person Who Dumped You,’ a lurid choose-your-own-adventure scenario… and ‘Rules for Taboo,’ a deeply weird set of rules for a game of that name.
“Bob-Waksberg caps his collection with a theme park of dead presidents in ‘More of You That You Already Are’ and a chaser in ‘We Will Be Close on Friday 18 July,’ which pushes existential angst into a simple grammar error.” –KIRKUS REVIEWS
“This fiction debut will capture readers with its formal innovation, playful language, and relatable portraits of romance gone awry.” —Jason Hess, BOOKLIST
“Bob-Waksberg tempers the ridiculous with a sharp tug at the heartstrings.”
—PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
. . . . .
FROM THE BEGINNING OF THE BOOK:
The date is going well. He’s handsome, and charming, and everything he claimed to be on the website. She likes him, she decides. He’s the kind of guy you could introduce to your friends, she decides.
After dinner, he invites her back to his place. He opens a bottle of wine and pours her a glass. He also offers her a tall, skinny can with a rubber lid: “Salted circus cashew?”
“What’s a circus cashew?” she asks.
“Open it up,” he says. “See for yourself.”
Media Resources:
About the book and author | Author tour | Download the jacket | Download the author photo
Knopf.
244 pages. $25.95 ISBN 978-1-5247-3201-1
To interview the author, contact:
Nimra Chohan | 212-572-2035 | nchohan@penguinrandomhouse.com