NowTrends

Karl Taro Greenfeld's NowTrends is the fourth book and second collection of short stories to come out of Short Flight/Long Drive Books, a publishing arm of the independent literary journal Hobart. In the title story, a reporter is sent to Chengdu, China to interview a young, drug-addled starlet and finds that a fellow journalist with questionable political ties has been imprisoned. In 'Mickey Mouse,' a struggling Japanese artist is asked by government officials to invent a cartoon character that will prove as popular as the Disney original. 'Copper Top' follows a man carrying 2100 milliliters of his own urine as he encounters heckling youths, Meg Whitman, and his father, who may or may not be dead. Karl Taro Greenfeld writes beautifully crafted stories with an authority, humor, and confidence reminiscent of Bret Easton Ellis, Philip Roth, and Ernest Hemingway. His stories have been chosen for inclusion in Best American Short Stories (2009) and the O. Henry Prize Stories (2012).