The Encyclopedia of Exes Page 29
Gary Shteyngart was born in Leningrad in 1972 and came to the United States seven years later. His novel, The Russian Debutante’s Handbook, won the Stephen Crane Award for First Fiction and the National Jewish Book Award for Fiction, was named a New York Times Notable Book, a best book of the year by the Washington Post and Entertainment Weekly, and one of the best debuts of the year by The Guardian. His fiction and essays have appeared in the New Yorker, Granta, GQ, The New York Times Magazine, and many other publications. He lives in New York.
Marc Spitz is a senior writer at SPIN magazine. His writing has also appeared in the New York Post, the Washington Post, GQ, and Nylon. He is the coauthor of the oral history We Got the Neutron Bomb (with Brendan Mullen), and the author of the novel How Soon Is Never? (which will soon be a motion picture). His new novel, Too Much, Too Late will be published in 2006.
Darin Strauss is the author of Chang and Eng and The Real McCoy. His work has been translated into fourteen languages, and he teaches writing at Columbia and New York Universities. His third novel, as well as a book of short fiction and nonfiction, will be published by Dutton next year. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.
Touré is the author of Soul City, a novel, and The Portable Promised Land, from which “The Breakup Ceremony” comes. He is also the pop culture correspondent on CNN’s American Morning. He studied at Columbia University’s graduate school of creative writing and lives in Fort Greene, Brooklyn. Check out Toure.com.
ALSO BY MEREDITH BROUSSARD
The Dictionary of Failed Relationships
CREDITS
Jonathan Ames’s story originally appeared as “Better with Girls” in his novel I Pass Like Night.
Steve Almond’s story originally appeared as “Anthony’s Girl” in Inkwell.
Gary Shteyngart’s story originally appeared as “Love’s Triangle Lost” in Esquire. It appears courtesy of Denise Shannon Agency.
Jonathan Lethem’s story originally appeared as “Five Fucks” in his story collection Wall of the Sky, Wall of the Eye.
Ben Schrank’s story is excerpted from a fictionalized biography of Sylvain Fusco.
Touré’s story originally appeared as “The Breakup Ceremony” in Soul City.
Matthew Sharpe’s story originally appeared as “A Car” in his story collection Stories from the Tube, published by Villard Books.
Lewis Robinson’s story originally appeared as “Finches” in Officer Friendly.
It is reprinted by persmission of HarperCollins Publishers Inc.
Definitions are bastardized from those found at dictionary.com and in the Oxford English Dictionary.
All stories copyright individual authors. Credits can be found on p. 319.
Any similarities to persons living or dead, particularly persons of your acquaintance who you may or may not have dated or been involved with at one time, are purely coincidental. Really. These things happen, you know.
Copyright © 2005 by Meredith Broussard
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either
are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead,
events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved.
Printed in the United States by Three Rivers Press,
an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group,
a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
www.crownpublishing.com
Three Rivers Press and the Tugboat design are registered
trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
The encyclopedia of exes : 26 stories by men of love gone wrong / Meredith Broussard.
1. Love stories, American. 2. Short stories, American—Male authors. 3. Man-woman relationships—Fiction. 4. Dating (Social customs)—Fiction. 5. Separation (Psychology)—Fiction. 6. Rejection (Psychology)—Fiction. 7. Failure (Psychology)—Fiction. I. Broussard, Meredith.
PS648.L6E53 2005
813′.085089286—dc22 2005005920
eISBN: 978-0-307-33697-2
v3.0