… funny, gloomy, terrifying, and joyful … Kennedy’s stories are
as good as any I’ve been reading in the past ten years or more. His characters
are full, alive, and each story is rich and deep. He writes with wisdom,
and it is perhaps that wisdom which turns some of his
stories of great sorrow into something triumphant.
—Andre Dubus, II, author of In the Bedroom and
We don’t Live Here Any More
You will find all 27 of Kennedy’s published books listed here. First, the
books are organized by category, and appear in alphabetical order within each category.
Then, in the Details section that follows the category lists, books are listed by
Release Date, in reverse chronological order (i.e., books published most recently
appear first).
Fiction: Novels
Fiction: Short Stories
Nonfiction: Essays
Nonfiction: Literary Criticism
Anthologies
In his capacity as Guest Editor, Kennedy has compiled the following anthologies:
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Book Details and Purchase Information
Books are listed here by Release Date, in reverse chronological order (i.e., books
published most recently appear first).
In addition to Release Date for each book, Details may include specifications such
as ISBN and name of publisher, a cover photo, a brief synopsis, and local links
to excerpts, reviews, and video clips for selected books. Hyperlinks to commercial
sites that stock Kennedy’s books may also appear for selected books.
Book Details may also include links to Google Book Search, where limited previews
of several of Kennedy’s books are available.
Newest Books
Falling Sideways
Release Date, USA:
Release Date, UK:
Publisher:
ISBN-13:
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March 2011
November 2011
Bloomsbury USA and UK
978-1608190812
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“Falling Sideways is the finest novel I have read in many years.
Thomas Kennedy is a true discovery, an author of rare intelligence and moral vision.
Not least, the book is immensely compelling and beautifully written.”
—Alain de Botton, author of How Reading Proust Can Save Your Life
and many other bestsellers
And from the Bloomsbury catalogue:
“By the author of the acclaimed In the Company of Angels, a rollicking,
cross-generational satire of work, love, and family, grounded in the rubble of a
downsizing company.
“There seems to be no shortage of business at the Tank, a high-profile firm
in Copenhagen. There are meetings to attend, memos to write, colleagues to undermine.
But when the Tank’s nefarious CEO announces a round of downsizing, everyone
becomes exponentially more concerned about…whatever it is they’re doing.
Not since Joshua Ferris’s Then We Came to the End has there been
such a savvy satire of contemporary work culture, and the distorting effects it
can have on our lives.
“Following these imperiled company men and women out into the autumn days
and nights of Copenhagen, Thomas E. Kennedy traces the ripple effects of the news
at the Tank as it impacts spouses, children, and lovers. Top executive Frederick
Breathwaite is frantically trying to ensure a stable future for his son, while the
boy’s greatest fear is that his future might resemble his father’s absurd
present. Harald Jaeger is estranged from his wife and daughters but pursuing desperate
passions for other women (including the Tank’s married CFO). And while he’s
lost in amorous fantasies, he has managed to catch the CEO’s eye—as
a possible replacement for Breathwaite.
“Sharp, funny, but remarkably tender, Falling Sideways is the second
book in Kennedy’s virtuoso Copenhagen Quartet, and a book that will
continue to build his reputation as one of America’s most versatile literary
novelists.”
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In the Company of Angels
Release Date: March 2010
Publisher: Bloomsbury USA and UK
ISBN-13: 978-1-60819-016-4
Buy from Bloomsbury
Bloomsbury Acquisition Announcement
Excerpt: “A Crack in the Face of God”
Review in Publisher’s Weekly, 10-12-09
Kennedy
discusses the novel
(Bloomsbury USA clip, YouTube)
Kennedy reads from the novel
(Harper College clip, YouTube)
From the Bloomsbury catalogue:
“Imprisoned for teaching political poetry to his students, Bernardo Greene
has been tortured for months by Pinochet’s henchmen when he is visited by
two angels, who promise that he will survive to experience beauty and love once
again. Months later, at the Torture Rehabilitation Center in Copenhagen, the Chilean
exile befriends Michela Ibsen, herself a survivor of domestic abuse. In the long
nights of summer, the two of them struggle to heal, to forgive those who have left
them damaged, and to trust themselves to love.
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“A luminous love story and an internationally
acclaimed masterpiece, published in the US and the UK for the first time”
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“Dense with wisdom and humanity, possessed of a timeless, fable-like quality,
In the Company of Angels is the powerful story of two damaged souls trying
to find their way from darkness toward light — a riveting testament to the
resilience and complexity of the human heart.
“This marks the first large-scale US publication of a major American author
whose novels, though internationally renowned, have been treasured literary secrets
in his own country until now.”
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Last Night My Bed a Boat of Whiskey Going Down
Release Date: April 2010
Publisher: New American Press
ISBN-13: 978-0981780283
Buy
from New American Press
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Press Release, New American Press:
Subtitled A Novel in Essays, [this book] plays with the borders between
fiction and essay, story and memoir, narrative and so-called creative nonfiction
to arrive at a “novel” about the life of a man and the women he has
known: From the first innocence of early teenage romance through an interim
period as a cad, an ill-fated marriage or two, to the adventures of an old dude
who refuses to go toes up just yet and continues to be “a slave to the nudity
of women.” Taking equal inspirations from poetry and women, Kennedy fashions
of experience a narrative myth of “all the girls you have ever admired, liked,
loved, kissed, longed for and lost but still have now because love is never really
lost…”
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“Essay writing at its finest…”
—Judges of the
National Magazine Award in selecting “I Am Joe’s
Prostate” as best essay of 2008
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Riding the Dog:
A Look Back at America
Book
Cover Image (PDF opens in new, resizable window and shows
wrap-around view of front and back covers)
Release Date: October 2008
Publisher: New American Press
ISBN: 978-0-9729679-6-9
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Reviews
This collection comprises a quintet of essays by Kennedy that were originally published
in New Letters magazine of the University of Missouri, Kansas City. Three
of the essays also received honorable mention in the Pushcart Prize, and
one was republished in the anthology, New American Essays.
- “Riding the Dog,” about a ride through the South on a Greyhound bus
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- “In the Dark,” an account of being in New York City during the 2003
blackout
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- “The Bridge Back to Queens,” a description of a visit back to Kennedy’s
hometown in Queens
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- “Land Where My Fathers Wrote,” an essay about writers and bars in New
York City
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- “Life in Another Language,”
excerpted elsewhere at this website
Riding the Dog opens with a Foreword by the Editor of New Letters,
Robert Stewart, who discusses the craft of the essays and their literary value.
The book also includes an Introduction by the author, discussing the pleasures for
a fiction writer of taking up creative nonfiction.
This book is also available in specialized audio format for eligible patrons
of the
National Library Service of the Library of Congress. This work, narrated
by Joyce Townsend, has been recorded in the studios of the New Mexico Library for
the Blind and Physically Handicapped, an affiliate of the National Library Service.
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Writers on the Job:
Tales of the Nonwriting Life
(with Walter Cummins)
What do writers do to eat and live while they write? This collection of
essays offers 20 sample solutions.
Release Date: July 2008
Publisher: Hopewell Publications
ISBN-10: 1-933435-216
ISBN-13: 978-1-933435-21-3
Publisher’s Announcement
(opens in new, resizable window)
Buy from Amazon
Buy from Author
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Cast Upon the Day
This collection includes a story which won first prize in the Gulf Coast
competition, and several stories that received other awards, including honorable
mention in the Pushcart Prize and Best American Short Stories.
Release Date: August 2007
Publisher: Hopewell Publications
ISBN: 1-933435-151
Buy from Hopewell Publications
Buy from Author
Excerpts
Reviews
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The Copenhagen Quartet
A ten-year project by Kennedy, consisting of four independent novels about the seasons
and souls of the Danish capital, each written in a different style, all published
by Wynkin de Worde Publishers in Ireland from 2002 through 2005. The novels can
be read separately or together, in any particular order.
Two of these novels earned Eric Hoffer Book Awards for 2007:
Greene’s Summer: Micro Press Winner
Danish Fall: First Runner-Up, General Fiction
The four-volume series was also the subject of a DVD documentary film produced by
Harper College in 2004 and screened in various universities and art houses in the
U.S.
Get book details (including video clips)…
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The Secret Life of Writers (with Walter Cummins)
A special anthology issue of The Literary Review (45:4), with essays
by 22 writers about the life behind the writing. Includes essays by Duff Brenna,
Janet McDonald, Greg Herriges, David Applefield, Linda Lappin, Susan Schwartz Senstad,
and others.
Release Date: 2002
Publisher: Fairleigh Dickinson University
Archived issue of The Literary Review (45:4)
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Poems and Sources
A special anthology issue of The Literary Review (44:1), with poems by
30 poets, along with essays on how they came to compose the poem in question. Includes
poems by John Updike, Charles Simic, Maxine Kumin, Carolyn Kizer, Eavan Boland,
Robert Stewart, and others.
Release Date: 2000
Publisher: Fairleigh Dickinson University
Excerpts
Archived issue of The Literary Review (44:1)
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Stories and Sources
A special anthology issue of The Literary Review (42:1), with stories
by 13 writers, followed by essays on how they came to write the story that appears
in the anthology. Includes stories and essays by Andre Dubus II, Robert Coover,
W.D. Wetherell, Susan Dodd, Gladys Swan, Duff Brenna, and others.
Release Date: 1998
Publisher: Fairleigh Dickinson University
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Drive, Dive, Dance & Fight
Eight stories, including an O. Henry Award winner, and several cited for honorable
mention in the Pushcart Prize annual.
Release Date: 1997
Publisher: BkMk Press, University of Missouri
ISBN-10: 1-88615714-6
ISBN-13: 978-1-886157-14-9
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Buy from BkMk Press
Reviews
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Small Gifts of Knowing: New Irish Poetry and Prose
A special anthology issue of The Literary Review (40:4), with poems and
prose by more than 50 contemporary Irish writers, including an interview of J.P.
Donleavy by Kennedy, as well as original work by Dermot Bolger, Philip Davison,
Tony Curtis, Eamon Grennan, Robert Greacen, Angela Greene, Paula Meehan, Theo Dorgan,
and many others. Issue includes a portfolio of black and white Irish portraits by
Ron Rosenstock.
Release Date: 1997
Publisher: Fairleigh Dickinson University
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A Weather of the Eye
A short novel setting out “with heart-rending accuracy” the response
of a family whose father is cut down before his time.
Release Date: 1996
Publisher: Potpourri Publications
ISBN: 1-884754-23-6
Reviews
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New Danish Fiction
Anthology issue of The Review of Contemporary Fiction (XV:1), with previously
unpublished English translations of work by Suzanne Brøgger, Peter Høeg,
Ib Michael, Kirsten Thorup, and others.
Release Date: 1995
Publisher: Dalkey Archive Press/Center for Book Culture
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Index to American Short Story Award Collections, 1970-1990
Index lists short-story award winners of the Pushcart Prize, American Fiction Series,
AWP Short Fiction Award, Drue Heinz Literature Prize, Iowa School of Letters Award,
Flannery O’Connor Award, and University of Illinois Short Fiction Series.
Release Date: 1993
Publisher: G.K. Hall & Company/Macmillan
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Robert Coover: A Study of the Short Fiction
A study of the short fiction of this outstanding and hilariously funny metafictionist.
Includes an interview with Coover and selections from other critics.
Release Date: 1992
Publisher: Twayne Publishers/G.K. Hall & Company/Macmillan
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The American Short Story Today (with Henrik Specht)
A collection of essays and bibliography on the state of the art [as it was] until
the date of publication.
Out of Print
Release Date: 1991
Publisher: United States Information Service/Danish Association of American
Studies
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Crossing Borders
This novel tells the tale of Jack Sugrue, husband and father of two, who loves his
family but hates his life, and of what he does to escape.
Release Date: 1990
Publisher: Watermark Press
ISBN-10: 0-922820-09-0
ISBN-13: 978-0-922820-00-92
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Excerpts
Reviews
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Andre Dubus: A Study of the Short Fiction
The first and only book-length study to date of the short fiction of the legendary
author, Andre Dubus II. Currently, this book is in the process of being updated
and expanded to include a study of Dubus’s essay collections and his one published
novel as well. The book includes a lengthy, instructive interview with this modern
master.
Release Date: 1988
Publisher: Twayne Publishers/G.K. Hall & Company/Macmillan
ISBN-10: 0-805783-05-9
ISBN-13: 978-0-805783-05-6
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