titles / The Week You Weren't Here by Charles Blackstone
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"The Week You Weren't Here is a witty and inventive deconstruction of a young-man-as-artist's pursuit of love among a confusion of choices. It's as if Kafka's Joseph K had been commissioned to write a Dating for Dummies (The How-Not-To version) in the form of a postmodern novel. This is an auspicious debut."—Jonathan Baumbach, author of B and On the Way to My Father's Funeral
"In fast, tangled, addictive prose, Charles Blackstone’s The Week You Weren’t Here observes everything, compulsively, on its way to showing how hard it is to really, finally, understand anything. This is a smart, fun book that takes a fascinating look at the minutiae that complicate our (love) lives."—Matthew Roberson, author of 1998.6
"Given the strength of the narrative voice, the reader quickly learns to read Charles Blackstone's sparsely punctuated prose...a fine first novel."—The Review of Contemporary Fiction
"Remarkable...Blackstone gracefully keeps [Hunter Flanagan] tottering on the precipice between romantic hero and irredeemable cad. It's a compelling balancing act to watch...An original voice."—Bookslut
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The Week You Weren't Here
by Charles Blackstone
Trade Paperback
Price: $15.00
312 pages / 5.5X8.5
ISBN 0-9723363-4-6
Pub. Date: April 15, 2005
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With a Proustian knack for recalling the smallest detail--from a superficial conversation to the exquisite pain of the perfect kiss--Hunter Flanagan deftly navigates past and present, simultaneously analyzing, deconstructing and torturing himself with memories of every girl he's lost or loved. For Hunter, writing is easy; it's love that comes hard. Even as he prepares to leave family, friends and Chicago--the city that made him--he never gives up on his pursuit of love and meaning. The Week You Weren't Here is a poignant and wry portrait of a young writer closing in on the last of his undergraduate days. Charles Blackstone's prose is a seamless match for Hunter's fragmented stream-of-consciousness. From encounters with the persistent "stalker" Kate, to the elusive Dewey, and the surprisingly independent sorority girl, Lila, Hunter exemplifies our longing for the defining moment--as fragile and quixotic a dream as life itself.
ABOUT
THE AUTHOR:
Charles Blackstone lives in Chicago and teaches the subtleties of limited omniscience at the University of Chicago's Graham School of General Studies. Blackstone's short fiction has appeared, most recently, in Rio, Wazee Journal (featured fiction selection), M.A.G, Whet Magazine (a serialized story) and others. He has a BA in English from the University of Illinois at Chicago and an MA in Creative Writing from the University of Colorado, where, in 2001, he received the Barker Award. Currently, he is completing another novel and a collection of stories .
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