The late National Book Award-winning author offers a collection of short stories that reflects society's follies and foibles--including, "At the Tolstoy Museum," "Sentence," and "Porcupines at the University&q...

Barthelme’s last book, published posthumously, is a novel composed in dialogue in which King Arthur finds himself battling against the Nazis in World War II. Arthur simultaneously prepares his son Mordred for the duties of rulin...

If you read straight through these stories you're bound to be struck by the volume's cohesiveness. Donald Barthelme's writing is from the outset firm and sure, entirely his own. He experiments as freely nowadays as he did when he was ...

The Dead Father is a gargantuan half-dead, half-alive, part mechanical, wise, vain, powerful being who still has hopes for himself--even while he is being dragged by means of a cable toward a mysterious goal. In this extraordinary nov...

An inventive, satiric modern retelling of the classic fairy tale provides an incisive and biting commentary on the absurdities and complexities of modern life. Reprint. 12,500 first printing.

"Barthelme . . . happens to be one of a handful of American authors, there to make us look bad, who know instinctively how to stash the merchandise, bamboozle the inspectors, and smuggle their nocturnal contraband right on past the ch...