Garth Risk Hallberg is the author of the novella A Field Guide to the North American Family and was selected by Richard Bausch as one of 2008’s “Best New American Voices.” His short stories have been published, most recently, in Glimmer Train, Canteen, and The Pinch. Essays have appeared in Slate, More Intelligent Life, and the Best of the Web anthology. A 2008 New York Foundation for the Arts Fellow in Fiction, Garth teaches at Fordham University. He’s finishing up his first novel and a story collection. (Photo courtesy of Timothy Briner.)

[Fiction]

A Field Guide to the North American Family: An Illustrated Novella. New York: Mark Batty Publisher, 2007.

“Early Humans.” Best New American Voices 2008. ed. Richard Bausch, Natalie Danford and John Kulka, New York: Harcourt/Harvest Books, 2007.

“Just Wide of the Moon.” Natural Bridge. Issue 20: Winter 2009.

“The Filibuster.” Torpedo. Volume Three: Fall 2008.

“Jubilee.” Glimmer Train. Issue 65: Winter 2007.

“Castaways.” The Pinch. Volume 27, Issue 3: Winter 2007.

“Samuel Beckett Shaving.” Hotel St. George Press. Spring 2008.

“A Light That Never Goes Out.” Canteen. Issue 1: Spring 2007.

“Autumn in a Box.” [sic]. Issue 2: Fall 2007.

“Lucinda in Reverse.” Pindeldyboz. March 7, 2007.

“Objects in Mirror.” Evergreen Review. Issue 110: Fall 2005.

“The Love Song of Ari Fleischer.” h2so4. Issue 19: Fall 2004.

“For the Man Who Has Everything.” Em. Issue 4: Spring 2004.

[Selected Essays]

“The Lost Postmodernist: Joseph McElroy.” Jacket Copy. July 7, 2009.

“Watchmen: The Curious Case of a Graphic Novel.” More Intelligent Life. April 15, 2009.

“Is 2666 a Masterpiece?: Roberto Bolaño’s Mysterious Legacy.” More Intelligent Life. November 14, 2008.

“Joseph Mitchell’s True Facts: Notes on a Reporter-Stylist.” More Intelligent Life. August 25, 2008.

“Playing Lotto With Wittgenstein: On Helen DeWitt’s The Last Samurai.” Open Letters Monthly. March, 2008.

“Who is Grady Harp?: Amazon’s Top Reviewers and the Fate of the Literary Amateur.” Slate. January 22, 2008.

“The One That Got Away: Why James Wood is Wrong About Underworld.” The Quarterly Conversation. Issue 9: Fall 2007; reprinted in Best of the Web 2008 (Dzanc Books).

“Blog Hogs”: A Reply to the Editors of n+1. n+1. Issue 7. Winter, 2008.

“El Mundo de Manana, Hoy: Un intento de reseña: Against the Day, de Thomas Pynchon.” Hermanocerdo. Issue 13: February-March 2007.

“Racial Reconciliation in a Season of Suffering.” Conscience & Courage. Vol. 2: Summer 2006.

“My Life as Bruce Springsteen.” The New Pantagruel. Issue 1: Winter 2004.

“James Merrill’s Narrative Prose.” James Merrill: Other Writings. Ed. John Hodge. St. Louis: Washington University Libraries, 2001.

Huzzah/D’oh! The Descent of Man, a short story collection, was the runner-up for the 2009 Prairie Schooner Book Prize. 

“Castaways,” a short story, is a Pushcart Prize nominee.

Some kind soul or souls landed Field Guide on the longlist for the The Believer Book Award. Thanks, Mom!

A press release for the NYFA Fellowship. Awfully nice to be in such fine company.

“Sex on a picnic table?” Read about my ignominious Literary Death Match defeat at The New Yorker’s Book Bench.

At The Elegant Variation, Jim Ruland adds Field Guide to his list of “Good Things That Come in Small Packages”: “With its mish-mash of styles…the illustrated novella-in-flash is unexpectedly astute. Perfect for road trips with people you hate.” Which is a good thing (I hope)?

The April issue of PDN profiles A Field Guide to the North American Family: “The Hungates and the Harrisons…in a pre-digital era might have populated the pages of novels and short stories by John Cheever, John Updike and Richard Yates.”

AFGNAF: “Just plain brilliant” – Flagpole.

Field Guide will be an “Editors Recommend” pick in the February issue of PRINT magazine.

“A Field Guide to the North American Family is a beautiful book,” writes Andrea Chmielewski of Bookslut. “Beautiful because of the gentle way the story of two suburban families unravels for the reader. Beautiful because each of the short entries that make up the novella is accompanied by a photograph, sometimes bizarre or haunting, but always a pleasure to behold. Beautiful because the book itself has all the elements that make the act of reading seem like an event.” Read the complete review here.

FILE Magazine features Field Guide: “Whether you read straight through or by meandering through its entries, by the end you have taken a heartbreaking journey through an chaotic and intense period in [...] two families’ lives. But it isn’t just the story, its structure, or prose that makes this book so ingenious. The book is a visual feast as well.” The FILE article also offers an interview and lush reproductions of pages from the book. Check it out here.

I recently went 10 rounds with Ed Champion of The Bat Segundo Show. Judge the audio here.

“There’s an appealing philosophical sweetness underlying the glancing surfaces,” writes Levi Asher of Literary Kicks. “If you buy this book as a Christmas present for everybody it reminds you of, you’ll be buying a lot of copies, and why shouldn’t you?” Read the complete review here.

“A remarkable collaboration…beautifully produced,” writes Rachel Fershleiser of Grand Street News. “Reveal[s] dark secrets and explore[s] the profound minutiae of modern life.” Read her article about the book’s genesis and the gallery show here.

“Intensely personal,” writes David Willems of Hotel St. George Press. “A sad and beautiful book. [Hallberg's] writing is luminous.” Read the complete review here.

“One of the smartest voices in the literary blogosphere,” writes Mark Sarvas of The Elegant Variation.

You may also enjoy listening to a September 10 interview on WFMU-FM’s “The Speakeasy” here.

And you can read a recent interview with Shane Mehling of E-Notes here.

Find me online at The Millions, at afieldguide.com, and at the late, lamented The Fabulous Adventures of Hot Face.