{"title":"Charles Baxter","description":"CHARLES BAXTER is the author of the novels The Feast of Love (nominated for the National Book Award), First Light, Saul and Patsy, Shadow Play, The Soul Thief, and The Sun Collective and the story collections Believers, Gryphon, Harmony of the World, A Relative Stranger, There's Something I Want You to Do, and Through the Safety Net. His stories have been included several times in The Best American Short Stories. Baxter lives in Minneapolis.","products":[{"product_id":"blood-test-a-comedy-paperback","title":"Blood Test: A Comedy - Paperback","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eFrom the winner of the PEN\/Malamud Award and \"one of our most gifted writers\"(\u003ci\u003eChicago Tribune\u003c\/i\u003e) comes a comic novel about a divorced Midwestern dad who takes a cutting-edge medical test and learns that he has a predisposition to murder.\u003c\/b\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eIn this fresh take on love and trouble in America, Brock Hobson, an insurance salesman and Sunday-school teacher, finds his equilibrium disturbed by the results of a predictive blood test. Baxter, a master storyteller, brings us a gradually building rollercoaster narrative, and a protagonist who is impertinent, searching, and hilariously relatable. From his good-as-gold, gentle girlfriend to the macho subcontractor guy his ex-wife left him for, not to mention his well-raised teenage kids, now exploring sex and sexuality, the secondary characters in Brock's life all contribute meaningfully to the drama, as increasing challenges to his sense of self and purpose crash over him. The final battle--no spoilers, but there is one--couldn't be more delightful, as this quick and bracing novel reminds us to choose the best people to love, accept the ones we love even if we didn't choose them, and love the mall well.","brand":"BooksCloud","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50102510354655,"sku":"9780593685594","price":17.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0813\/8958\/4607\/files\/O-4XKcaken9780593685594.webp?v=1781083393"},{"product_id":"gryphon-new-and-selected-stories-paperback","title":"Gryphon: New and Selected Stories - Paperback","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eA \u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e Notable Book from the winner of the PEN\/Malamud Award for Excellence in the Short Story and \"one of our most gifted writers\" (\u003ci\u003eChicago Tribune\u003c\/i\u003e)\u003c\/b\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eBy turns compassionate, gently humorous, and haunting, this collection--sixteen classics with seven new stories--proves William Maxwell's assertion that \"nobody can touch Charles Baxter in the field that he has carved out for himself.\" \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eWhether friends or strangers, the characters in these stories share a desire--sometimes muted and sometimes fierce--to break through the fragile glass of convention. In the title story, a substitute teacher walks into a new classroom, draws an outsized tree on the blackboard on a whim, and rewards her students by reading their fortunes using a Tarot deck. In each of the stories we see the delicate tension between what we want to believe and what we need to believe. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"A warmly disposed yet unsentimental chronicler of American lives ... Some [stories are] poignant and disturbing, and all of them highly readable.\" --\u003ci\u003eThe New York Times Book Review\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BooksCloud","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50104841109727,"sku":"9780307739520","price":19.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0813\/8958\/4607\/files\/icHkLzWDd9780307739520.webp?v=1781111426"},{"product_id":"theres-something-i-want-you-to-do-stories-paperback","title":"There's Something I Want You to Do: Stories - Paperback","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e\"There's something I want you to do.\"\u003c\/i\u003e This request--sometimes simple, sometimes not--forms the basis for the ten interrelated short stories that comprise this latest penetrating and prophetic collection from the winner of the PEN\/Malamud Award and \"one of our most gifted writers\" (\u003ci\u003eChicago Tribune\u003c\/i\u003e).\u003c\/b\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eAs we follow a diverse group of Minnesota citizens, each grappling with their own heightened fears, responsibilities, and obsessions, Baxter unveils the remarkable in what might otherwise be the seemingly inconsequential moments of everyday life.","brand":"BooksCloud","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50104841208031,"sku":"9780804172738","price":19.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0813\/8958\/4607\/files\/k1Gcqv_GwT9780804172738.webp?v=1781111427"}],"url":"https:\/\/blackandbarhe.com\/collections\/charles-baxter.oembed","provider":"Black \u0026 Barhe Bookstore","version":"1.0","type":"link"}