The first collection of nonfiction by "one of the few truly important American writers of our time" (Sam Lipsyte).Gathering pieces written during the past three decades, Indigo ranges widely in subject matter and tone, opening with “Cleve Dean,” which takes Padgett Powell to Sweden for the World Armwrestling Federation Championships, through to its closing title piece, which charts Powell’s lifelong fascination with the endangered indigo snake, “a thinking snake,” and his obsession with seeing one in the wild.  “Some things in between” include an autobiographical piece about growing up in the segregated and newly integrated South and tributes to writers Powell has known, among them Donald Barthelme, who “changed the aesthetic of short fiction in America for the second half of the twentieth century,” and Peter Taylor, who briefly lived in Gainesville, Florida, where Powell taught for...

'When asked for a list of the best young American writers, I invariably put Padgett Powell at the top' Saul BellowThe book is a conversation, apparently on a porch, between two men who may be difficult to grasp. They move together in aimless convenient debate, coming to conclusions that don't conclude but to positions that may not be finally so aimless. They disagree to agree. They are smart, not smart; fools, not fools. Poignant, hilarious, opaque, diamond-clear, this strange little gem is sure to delight the thousands of devotees found by Powell's The Interrogative Mood. 'When we first came across Padgett Powell's remarkable writing it blew our minds completely' Dazed & Confused.

In the sequel to Powell's acclaimed debut, Edisto, Simons Manigault is older—if not particularly wiser—and searching for the cure to his restlessness in memory, travel, and forbidden loveFourteen years after we first met Simons Manigault, our protagonist is newly graduated from Clemson University, bored, unfocused, and idling his summer away at his mother's home in Edisto, South Carolina. Not yet ready to fully embrace adulthood, Simons finds himself surrendering to cynicism, as well as to the temptations of his turned-out-well first cousin, Patricia.To avoid sinking further into his rut, Simons embarks on a road trip through the South. After a disastrous stint as a Corpus Christi fisherman, he exits the Lone Star State, doubling back to the Louisiana bayou to spend some quality time with his former friend and mentor—and his mother's ex-lover—Taurus. But as even Taurus's once sought-after wisdom wears thin, Simons begins to suspect that the grass...

Twenty-three surreal fictions—stories, character assassinations, and mini-travelogues—from one of the most heralded writers of the American SouthThere are many things that repulse Dr. Ordinary. Kansas is notable for its distinct lack of farmland. Wayne's Fate is most unfortunate, not merely for Wayne but for the roofer pal who stands by watching his good buddy lose his head. Miss Resignation simply cannot win at Bingo. And there is nothing Typical about the unemployed steelworker and self-described piece of crud who strides through this collection's title story.Welcome to the world of Padgett Powell, one of the most original American literary voices in recent memory. Typical is both a bravura demonstration of Powell's passion for words, and an offbeat, perceptive view of contemporary life—an enthralling work by a one-of-a-kind wordsmith, and a redefinition of what short fiction can be.

One of NPR's Best Books of 2015"Rifles through fear, identity, meaning, and cultural memory in forty-four short, surreal stories." —Vanity Fair"By turns moving, funny, and maddening....These stories are very much in the key of Donald Barthelme." —The New York Times Book Review"Somehow both grounded and absurd, each one of the stories trying get at that heart of the confusion and sadness at the core of contemporary life." —VICEFrom the highly acclaimed author of Edisto and The Interrogative Mood, Padgett Powell's new collection of stories, Cries for Help, Various, follows his mentor Donald Barthelme's advice that “wacky mode" must “break their hearts." The surrealistic and comical terrain of most of the forty-four stories here is grounded by a real preoccupation with longing, fear, work, loneliness, and cultural nostalgia. These universal concerns are given exhilarating life by way of...

The idiosyncratic genius of Padgett Powell shines through in nine stories that bend the conventions of short fictionPadgett Powell's literary stage is a blurred vision of the American South. His characters are bored, sad, assured, confused, deluded, and often just one step away from madness. The stories they populate are madder still, delivered by a voice enthralling and distinctive.Whether he's chronicling a housewife's encouragement of adolescent lust, following two good ol' boys on their search for a Chinese healer, or delving into the mind of an unstable moped accident survivor as he awaits a hefty settlement check, Powell revels in the irregularities of the mundane. His people occupy bar stools and strip clubs, pickup truck cabs and mental health clinics, looking for love, drugs, answers. According to the New York Times Book Review, Mr. Powell is like a fabulous guest at a dinner party, the guy who gets people drinking far too much and licking their dessert plates...

“Padgett Powell's You & Me, mixed with 750 ml of fine bourbon, is the most fun you can have in many states without getting arrested.”—Gary Shteyngart, bestselling author of Absurdistan and Super Sad True Love Story“The novel's penetrating, playful words manage to 'pick impossibly heavy sht up' and deliver what one of the characters calls 'the perfect nonsense a real dream makes.'”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)Padgett Powell, author of the acclaimed The Interrogative Mood and “one of the few truly important American writers of our time” (Sam Lipsyte), returns with a hilarious Southern send-up of Samuel Beckett's classic Waiting for Godot. Truly a master of envelope-pushing, post-postmodern American fiction, in a class with Nicholas Baker and Lydia Davis, Powell brilliantly blends the sublime, the trivial, and the oddball in You & Me, as two loquacious gents on a porch...

Whatever floats your boat, go ahead and float it. Do not have large untenable quantities of despair. Do not go to parades. When you feed orphaned wild animals, do not expect them to make it. Be forewarned. Be careful that your genitals do not show outside the strict confines of your underwear. Learn at least three racquet games during your lifetime. In this brand new short, Padgett Powell takes the reader on a completely new kind of journey. Just as The Interrogative Mood was stubbornly memorable and persistently illuminating, The Imperative Mood is surprising, funny, sneakily cumulative, charming, and artful. As well as just a little bit bossy. The imperative is darker than the interrogative mood, we learn.

Finalist for the National Book Award: Through the eyes of a precocious twelve-year-old in a seaside South Carolina town, the world of love, sex, friendship, and betrayal blossomsSimons Everson Manigault is not a typical twelve-year-old boy in tiny Edisto, South Carolina, in the late 1960s. At the insistence of his challenging mother (known to local blacks as the Duchess), who believes her son to possess a capacity for genius, Simons immerses himself in great literature and becomes as literate and literary as any English professor.When Taurus, a soft-spoken African-American stranger, moves into the cabin recently vacated by the Manigaults' longtime maid, a friendship forms. The lonely, excitable Simons and the quiet, thoughtful Taurus, who has appointed himself Simons's guide in the ways of the grown-up world, bond over the course of a hot Southern summer.But Taurus may be playing a larger role in the Manigaults' life than he is willing to let on—a suspicion that...

A phantasmagoric dream of a novel, exploring the mind of a housewife enamored of historical personages, twisted love stories, and strange conspiraciesMrs. Hollingsworth sits at her kitchen table, compiling her grocery list. The subject of the list is not foodstuffs, but memories that never happened, inventions of loves, and strange conspiracies peopled by men who appear in the lonely housewife's head—men infinitely more real to her than her own husband. Confederate general Nathan Bedford Forrest gallops into her story, courtesy of media giant Ted Turner and two shady criminal types named Bundy and Oswald who are engaged in a secret experiment to create the New Southerner.Her prying daughters believe Mrs. Hollingsworth is losing her mind. But in truth, their mother is simply looking for love via hand-to-hand combat on the surreal battlefield inside her head.Originally published as Mrs. Hollingsworth's Men, Padgett Powell's Hologram is a stunning literary achievement....

Powell's second novel takes its narrator on a quiet romp of seeming dissipation through the South--from Knoxville, Tennessee, to remote parts of Florida and his home in Lafayette, Louisiana. "Extravagantly comic."--Time.**