{"title":"Donald Barthelme","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"the-king","title":"The King","description":"\u003cp\u003eIn \u003cem\u003eThe King\u003c\/em\u003e, a retelling of Le Morte D'Arthur, Donald Barthelme moves the chivalrous Knights of the Round Table to the cruelty of the Second World War. Dunkirk has fallen, Europe is at the breaking point, Ezra Pound and Lord Haw-Haw are poisoning the radio waves, Mordred has fled to Nazi Germany, and King Arthur and his worshipful Knights are deep in the fighting. When the Holy Grail presents itself--which is, in this version, the atomic bomb, \"a superweapon if you will, with which we can chastise and thwart the enemy\"--they must decide whether to hew to their knightly ways or adopt a modern ruthlessness. Barthelme makes brilliant comic use of anachronism to show that war is center stage in the theater of human absurdity and cruelty. But Arthur, in deciding to decline the power of the Grail, announces his unwillingness to go along: \"It's not the way we wage war. The essence of our calling is right behavior, and this false Grail is not a knightly weapon.\"\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Snowlock Books","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":67579863761129,"sku":null,"price":12.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0745\/7429\/9369\/files\/King_The_fb80cb00-f873-4530-9095-cfbf591d1f74.jpg?v=1790436890"},{"product_id":"sixty-stories","title":"Sixty Stories","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eSixty Stories\u003c\/i\u003e brings together Barthelme's most famous works and hidden gems--a dazzling, subversive collection where language bends, reality warps, and the absurd reigns supreme.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWith these subversive, razor-sharp stories, Donald Barthelme dismantles the familiar and rearranges it into something dazzlingly strange. \u003ci\u003eSixty Stories\u003c\/i\u003e is a literary fun house where language is bent, meaning is slippery, and the absurd is never far from the truth.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHere, the ordinary mutates into the uncanny--an enormous balloon hovers over the city, its purpose debated by those below; a classroom lesson spirals into something darker and more profound; two men locked in a Cold War bunker teeter on the edge of madness. Elsewhere, a friend struggles to coax the Phantom of the Opera out of his shadowy refuge, and an entire town is made up of nothing but churches.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBarthelme moves effortlessly between deadpan satire, dream logic, and moments of startling beauty, crafting stories that are as unsettling as they are irresistible. Whether you're encountering his work for the first time or returning for another descent into his linguistic labyrinth, \u003ci\u003eSixty Stories\u003c\/i\u003e is a testament to a writer who saw the world askew--and showed us how thrilling that could be.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Snowlock Books","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":67579873689833,"sku":"9781250420312","price":20.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0745\/7429\/9369\/files\/Sixty_Stories.webp?v=1790436890"},{"product_id":"forty-stories","title":"Forty Stories","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eWitty, surreal, and endlessly inventive, \u003ci\u003eForty Stories\u003c\/i\u003e is Barthelme at his finest--dismantling convention, bending language, and turning fiction into pure mischief.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eDonald Barthelme is a master of the unexpected, a writer who bends fiction into strange and exhilarating shapes. In \u003ci\u003e Forty Stories\u003c\/i\u003e, the companion to \u003ci\u003eSixty Stories, \u003c\/i\u003e he delivers a dazzling collection of tales--each one a collision of wit, absurdity, and sharp social insight.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWith a signature postmodern style that blends pastiche, collage, and metafiction, Barthelme reinvents storytelling at every turn. He takes on subjects as varied as Paul Klee, Goethe, Captain Blood, modern courtship, marriage, divorce, and armadillos, but his true fascination lies in language itself--how it twists, contradicts, and reveals the absurdity of contemporary life. Packed with irony, surreal imagery, and deadpan humor, these stories probe authority, relationships, and existential anxieties, all while keeping the reader deliciously off-balance.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAt once playful and profound, fragmented yet deeply resonant, \u003ci\u003eForty Stories\u003c\/i\u003e is a brilliant showcase of Barthelme's ability to subvert expectations and transform the ordinary into something extraordinary. For readers who crave fiction that defies convention, this collection is an invitation to experience storytelling at its most fearless.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Snowlock Books","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":67579997290729,"sku":"9781250420299","price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0745\/7429\/9369\/files\/Forty_Stories.webp?v=1790436890"}],"url":"https:\/\/snowlockbooks.com\/collections\/donald-barthelme.oembed","provider":"Snowlock Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}