Hotel Eden Book

"I read Ron Carlson's stories again and again. I read them to my friends at dinner parties and over the phone. I even read one to my dad. I think 'A Note on the Type' might be the best story in the English language" -- Pam Houston, author of Cowboys Are My Weakness

Prepare to be amused, moved, disturbed. These dozen stories by a master of idiosyncrasy visit a world where wit has heft, charm has shadow, and human beings act out all the complicated nuances of love.

In the title story a young man waiting in the Hotel Eden discovers as others have that Eden is not a permanent domicile. In "Zanduce at Second," a baseball player turned killer-by-accident undergoes a surprising transformation. We root for escaped felon Ray ("A Note on the Type") as he carves his name on a culvert wall. We drive the sweltering summer streets of Phoenix as a nineteen-year-old narrator goes through an unsettling sexual awakening ("Oxygen"). In these and other stories, whether his characters are getting sabotaged by nightcaps or encountering nudists on a rafting trip, Carlson takes us to a generous array of places in a new way. Finally, in "The Chromium Hook," he takes us to a lovers' lane where he solves an ancient mystery.

Ron Carlson teaches creative writing at Arizona State and lives in Scottsdale. Ron Carlson's stories have appeared in Harper's, GQ, DoubleTake, North American Review, and elsewhere. Author of two previous collections, The News of the World and Plan B for the Middle Class (both published by Norton), he says, "I write about my personal experiences whether I've had them or not. I send myself on the journey. If it's not personal, I don't want to be involved."