A Different Kind of Tension

A definitive collection of new and selected stories by a master of the form

‘Comparisons might be drawn to writers ranging from Jorge Luis Borges and Haruki Murakami to Margaret Atwood and J. D. Salinger. All of Lethem’s stories are enlivened by his wit and provocative wordplay.’—Chicago Tribune

This dazzling, genre-defying collection from Jonathan Lethem features seven major stories published since his last collection, along with his best work spanning more than three decades. A major new story, ‘The Red Sun School of Thoughts,’ never published before, follows a teenage boy coming to terms with figures of authority and power—those in both his biological family and in the family he creates for himself.

Elsewhere we meet ‘Super Goat Man,’ a down-at-heels bohemian superhero; ‘The Porn Critic,’ whose accidental expertise wrecks his own romantic aspirations; and ‘Sleepy People,’ who pose interpersonal conundrums without ever rousing from their slumber. Fluidly moving between realism and the surreal, the absurd and the mundane, A Different Kind of Tension is a container bursting with life and death, couples in trouble, talking animals, and technologies on the fritz. Through it all are people longing to be seen and to connect; to thrive, love, and be forgiven. ''This is the joy of reading Jonathan Lethem: you never know what you’re going to get.’ (Financial Times)


Genre: Science Fiction

"How fortunate to have new and collected stories, because while amazing individually, cumulatively the effect is stunning. That last story: Oh! Lethem creates characters who finger the worry beads in their pockets unseen, conjuring those same hard realities into stepping stones to move the story forward. I read the stories as journeys with significant digressions. You can imagine the writer pointing his magic wand in many directions, but the stories' sense of weird inevitability can't be anticipated; up pop our cultural dreams or nightmares, our off-kilter relationships, our personal sadnesses. Nobody does it better." - Ann Beattie

"I'm smitten with this collection, which feels as essential as The Fortress of Solitude or Motherless Brooklyn. Thirty-five years of asynchronous pleasure! Here is Lethem at his mind-melting best - as counter-clock-world builder, merry dystopian, king of sentences." - Ed Park

"Lethem's short stories are surrealisms. Comparisons to the other great surrealists of short fiction would be apt, but he's created his own mode, and naming his influences maybe obscures his particular achievement. They start as ideas, as in 1950s science fiction or European folktales, ideas that are clear, startling, bold, strange, memorable. Then they unfold into character sketches as in the realist tradition, full of heart and soul, pain and hilarity. This fusion of real and surreal is what makes these stories so Lethemesque, and so very good. Take one at a time, like strong medicine, or rare gifts." - Kim Stanley Robinson