It Occurs To Me That I Am America:
New Stories & Art
Touchstone/Simon & Schuster 2018
A provocative, unprecedented anthology featuring original short stories on what it means to be an American from thirty bestselling and award-winning authors with an introduction by Pulitzer Prize–winning author Viet Thanh Nguyen: “This chorus of brilliant voices articulating the shape and texture of contemporary America makes for necessary reading” (Lauren Groff, author of Fates and Furies).
When Donald Trump claimed victory in the November 2016 election, the US literary and art world erupted in indignation. Many of America’s preeminent writers and artists are stridently opposed to the administration’s agenda and executive orders—and they’re not about to go gentle into that good night. In this “masterful literary achievement” (Kurt Eichenwald, author of Conspiracy of Fools), more than thirty of the most acclaimed writers at work today consider the fundamental ideals of a free, just, and compassionate democracy through fiction in an anthology that “promises to be both a powerful tool in the fight to uphold our values and a tribute to the remarkable voices behind it” (Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the ACLU).
With an introduction by Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Viet Thanh Nguyen, and edited by bestselling author Jonathan Santlofer, this powerful anthology includes original, striking art from fourteen of the country’s most celebrated artists, cartoonists, and graphic novelists, including Art Spiegelman, Roz Chast, Marilyn Minter, and Eric Fischl.
Transcendent, urgent, and ultimately hopeful, It Occurs to Me That I Am America takes back the narrative of what it means to be an American in the 21st century.
Praise & Reviews
With an introduction by Pulitzer Prize–winning author Viet Thanh Nguyen
“This chorus of brilliant voices articulating the shape and texture of contemporary America makes for necessary reading”—Lauren Groff, author of Fates and Furies
“A terrific collection of short stories and art, which you will enjoy reading even more because the book supports the ACLU. Needed now more than ever.”—DICK CAVETT, longtime television talk-show host
Inherit The Dead
Touchstone/Simon & Schuster 2013
This New York Times and USA TODAY bestseller is a collaboration between twenty bestselling mystery novelists who have joined forces to create a spellbinding story of love, betrayal, and intrigue. “Readers can’t go wrong with this juicy thriller” raves Library Journal.
Pericles “Perry” Christo is a PI with a past—a former cop who lost his badge and his family when a corruption scandal left him broke and disgraced. So when wealthy Upper East Side matron Julia Drusilla summons him one cold February night, he grabs what seems to be a straightforward (and lucrative) case.
The socialite is looking for her beautiful, aimless daughter, Angelina, who is about to become a very wealthy young woman. But as Christo digs deeper, he discovers there’s much more to the lovely “Angel” than meets the eye. This classic noir tale twists and turns down New York’s mean streets and along the Hamptons beaches and back roads during a bitterly cold and gray winter where nothing is as it seems and everyone has something to hide.
In this inventive “serial novel” storytelling approach, each of the twenty bestselling writers brings his or her distinctive voice to a chapter of Inherit the Dead, building the tension to a shocking, explosive finale. The editor, Jonathan Santlofer, has arranged to donate any royalties in excess of editor and contributor compensation to Safe Horizon, the leading victim assistance agency in the country.
The Marijuana Chronicles
Illustrated
Akashic Books 2013
“A gem” of a collection of marijuana stories, poems and artwork by Joyce Carol Oates, Lee Child, Linda Yablonsky, Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan, and others (New York Journal of Books).
It’s known by many names: Pot. Grass. Hash. Hemp. Reefer. Ganja. Dope. Weed. Smoke. Spliff. Mary Jane. Tea. Blunt.
And it has played just as many parts in the mind of the public, from Reefer Madness to medical marijuana. Here is a collection of new works as diverse and provocative as the drug itself. From Joyce Carol Oates’s “High” to Dean Haspiel’s “Cannibal Sativa”; from Maggie Estep’s “Zombie Hookers of Hudson” to Philip Spitzer’s “Tips for the Pot-Smoking Traveler,” this collection explores the drug in its many forms and varietals. In prose, pictures, stories, and poems, you can delve into the folklore and the facts, rich cultural history, and dramas personal, political, spiritual, and legal.
Like Dave Chappelle says: “Hey, hey, hey. Smoke weed every day.”
L.A. Noire: The Collected Stories
Rockstar Games/Mulholland Books 2011
This collection of short fiction expands on the world of a groundbreaking achievement in storytelling: Rockstar Games’ interactive crime thriller L.A. Noire.
1940s Hollywood, murder, deception and mystery take center stage as readers reintroduce themselves to characters seen in L.A. Noire. Explore the lives of actresses desperate for the Hollywood spotlight; heroes turned defeated men; and classic Noir villains. Readers will come across not only familiar faces, but familiar cases from the game that take on a new spin to tell the tales of emotionally torn protagonists, depraved schemers and their ill-fated victims.
With original short fiction by Megan Abbott, Lawrence Block, Joe Lansdale, Joyce Carol Oates, Francine Prose, Jonathan Santlofer, Duane Swierczynski and Andrew Vachss, L.A. Noire: The Collected Stories breathes new life into a time-honored American tradition, in an exciting anthology that will appeal to fans of suspense and gamers everywhere.
The Dark End of the Street: New Stories of Sex and Crime
(with S.J. Rozan; illustrated)
Bloomsbury USA, 2010
“My good friend, the writer SJ Rozan and I got tired of people always desparaging crime fiction as a second-class citizen, so we invited a bunch of writers from both sides of the track, literary and crime and asked them each to write a sexy crime story. It was a thrill to see crime writers like Lee Child, Laura Lippman and Michael Connelly sharing a platform with literary folk like Amy Hempel, Jonathan Lethem and Francine Prose, among many other great writers. In the end, I think SJ and I were right: a good story is a good story is a good story. It doesn’t matter who writes it—and there are plenty of good ones in this collection to prove the point. I illustrated this book simply because I wanted to make some cool noir pictures.”
—Jonathan Santlofer