Dear Abigail and Other Stories

Fiction. Stephen Dixon has long been considered one of America's preeminent literary innovators. From the National Book Award nominated Frog and Interstate, to His Wife Leaves Him and Letters to Kevin, Dixon's unpredictable, often haunting fiction has given him no shortage of high-profile admirers (Vol. 1 Brooklyn). In Late Stories, he brought us the aging Philip Seidel--widowed, isolated, but resolutely continuing to write. Now, in DEAR ABIGAIL, he returns us to Seidel's freewheeling recollections. Still bereft, still yearning, Seidel, ever recounting, reimagining, and twisting up the details of his existence--seemingly unable to extricate them from the memory (and fantasies) of his late wife--struggles to let go of Abigail when even grief seems to have run its course. Although a companion to Late Stories, DEAR ABIGAIL stands on its own as a tender, cagey, deeply felt exploration of togetherness and heartbreak. Some writers are able, in a mere 200 pages or so, to rewire your circuitry in a way that makes you unfit for your own life. Stephen Dixon is such a writer, and he can do it in a short story as well.--The Los Angeles Times Mr. Dixon wields a stubbornly plain-spoken style; he loves all sorts of tricky narrative effects. And he loves even more the tribulations of the fantasizing mind, ticklish in their comedy, alarming in their immediacy.--The New York Times