Pieces for the Left Hand: Stories

A student's suicide note is not what it seems. A high school football rivalry turns absurd-and deadly. A much-loved cat seems to have been a different animal all along. A pair of identical twins aren't identical at all-or even related. A man finds his own yellowed birth announcement inside a bureau bought at auction.

Set in a small upstate New York town, told in a conversational style, Pieces for the Left Hand is a stream of a hundred anecdotes, none much longer than a page. At once funny, bizarre, familiar, and disturbing, these deceptively straightforward tales nevertheless shock and amaze through uncanny coincidence, tragic misunderstanding, strange occurrence, or sudden insight. Unposted letters, unexpected visitors, false memories-in J. Robert Lennon's vision of America, these are the things that decide our fate. Wry and deadpan, powerful and philosophical, these addictive little tales reveal the everyday world as a strange and eerie place.