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Stay Awake: Stories by Dan Chaon
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Stay Awake: Stories (edition 2012)

by Dan Chaon (Author)

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3556472,068 (3.85)79
"Before the critically acclaimed novels Await Your Reply and You Remind Me of Me, Dan Chaon made a name for himself as a renowned writer of dazzling short stories. Now, in Stay Awake, Chaon returns to that form for the first time since his masterly Among the Missing, a finalist for the National Book Award. In these haunting, suspenseful stories, lost, fragile, searching characters wander between ordinary life and a psychological shadowland. They have experienced intense love or loss, grief or loneliness, displacement or disconnection--and find themselves in unexpected, dire, and sometimes unfathomable situations. A father's life is upended by his son's night terrors--and disturbing memories of the first wife and child he abandoned; a foster child receives a call from the past and begins to remember his birth mother, whose actions were unthinkable; a divorced woman experiences her own dark version of "empty-nest syndrome"; a young widower is unnerved by the sudden, inexplicable appearances of messages and notes--on dollar bills, inside a magazine, stapled to the side of a tree; and a college dropout begins to suspect that there's something off, something sinister, in his late parents' house. Dan Chaon's stories feature scattered families, unfulfilled dreamers, anxious souls. They exist in a twilight realm--in a place by the window late at night when the streets are empty and the world appears to be quiet. But you are up, unable to sleep. So you stay awake"--Provided by publisher.… (more)
Member:brendanmoody
Title:Stay Awake: Stories
Authors:Dan Chaon (Author)
Info:Ballantine Books (2012), Edition: 1st, 272 pages
Collections:Your library, E-books
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Tags:read

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Stay Awake by Dan Chaon

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» See also 79 mentions

Showing 1-5 of 68 (next | show all)
I loved it! Completely depressing and bleak but loved it anyway.

Read this at night and it was a very strange counterpoint to my days - being a tourist at Disney World.

Chaon pulls you right into the dark headspace of his characters and makes you feel their sadness. ( )
  hmonkeyreads | Jan 25, 2024 |
Except for the last story which was a knockout, I was a little disappointed having read some of the author's other books. ( )
  monicaberger | Jan 22, 2024 |
It's official: Dan Chaon is one of my favorite authors. This collection includes some previously published (McSweeney's, Mid Atlantic) and newly seen stories; each one stellar; each one the kind of story/writing that makes me set the book down when finished in an attempt to stay in that space where an excellent story takes you. There's a feeling of displacement that flows through every story; ordinary people in ordinary days, but something is just slightly off in their lives. Love love love his writing. Also, I am super excited to be able to pronounce his name: "shawn." You would not believe how mungled I made his name when I attempted to say it. ( )
  ljohns | Jun 15, 2020 |
This was a truly wonderful collection of short stories. I was impressed with Dan Chaon's ability to use simple language to tell mesmerizing stories. It was also a pretty varied collection of stories. Some of them were downright scary and others were haunting while others played with my mind. What I really appreciated was a true collection of horror stories of different degrees. I had been looking for something like this and felt that most books that were billed as scary or horror fell short of the mark.
  melrailey | Apr 7, 2020 |
I realize lots of people read for escapism. I'm not one of those people, and this isn't a book for those people. Chaon manages to tap into the sense of dread people experience through just living. It's really Lovecraftian in tone without the supernatural element. ( )
  wordsampersand | Dec 6, 2018 |
Showing 1-5 of 68 (next | show all)
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It's so stupid. It's like trying to explain something to a cat.
He had the image of his own personal thoughts softly detaching and being carried off by the wind like dandelion seeds, floating through the city.
She put a French fry to her mouth, and the shape of it made her wish for a cigarette.
"You're smoking, too," he said. "I can hear you breathing smoke."
"You know what they say," he told her. "Fifty is the new thirty."
"Really?" she said. ... "Does that mean that thirty is the new ten?"
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"Before the critically acclaimed novels Await Your Reply and You Remind Me of Me, Dan Chaon made a name for himself as a renowned writer of dazzling short stories. Now, in Stay Awake, Chaon returns to that form for the first time since his masterly Among the Missing, a finalist for the National Book Award. In these haunting, suspenseful stories, lost, fragile, searching characters wander between ordinary life and a psychological shadowland. They have experienced intense love or loss, grief or loneliness, displacement or disconnection--and find themselves in unexpected, dire, and sometimes unfathomable situations. A father's life is upended by his son's night terrors--and disturbing memories of the first wife and child he abandoned; a foster child receives a call from the past and begins to remember his birth mother, whose actions were unthinkable; a divorced woman experiences her own dark version of "empty-nest syndrome"; a young widower is unnerved by the sudden, inexplicable appearances of messages and notes--on dollar bills, inside a magazine, stapled to the side of a tree; and a college dropout begins to suspect that there's something off, something sinister, in his late parents' house. Dan Chaon's stories feature scattered families, unfulfilled dreamers, anxious souls. They exist in a twilight realm--in a place by the window late at night when the streets are empty and the world appears to be quiet. But you are up, unable to sleep. So you stay awake"--Provided by publisher.

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