The Great American Songbook

by Sam Allingham

Overview

For the characters in these stories, love and music are almost indistinguishable. A famous songwriting duo is destroyed by their creative differences, a jazz musician is consumed by his inability to speak or play, a man takes a pop song literally and charts his love onto buildings. These stories cover songs and riff on melodies. They unearth chords that bridge the gap between past and present. A playful, elegant debut collection, The Great American Songbook explores the profound hold that music has on our lives.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780989275996
Publisher:	Deep Vellum Publishing
Publication date:	05/08/2018
Pages:	182
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 7.40(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Sam Allingham grew up in rural New Jersey and Philadelphia. After graduating from Oberlin College, he worked for many years as a music teacher for adults and small(ish) children, before receiving an MFA from Temple Universityin 2013. His work has appeared in One Story, American Short Fiction, Epoch, n+1, The Millions, and Full Stop, among other publications. He currently lives in West Philadelphia and teaches at Temple University.

Editorial Reviews

10/17/2016
The title of this debut story collection makes reference to a fluid but generally agreed upon canon of songs that defines a particular, early 20th-century American sensibility. Allingham's aim is presumably the same: to build a mood, a perception of the world, with these disparate and inscrutable but well-executed stories. In the first and last tales, Allingham gives readers insider information, not all of it pleasant, on the beloved musical duo Rodgers and Hart ("Rodgers and Hart"), and with verve speaks in the exasperated voice of famous big-band clarinetist Artie Shaw ("The Great American Songbook"). That his flawed narrators are unreliable is indisputable, and no doubt deliberate. Several other stories in the middle section fill in with explorations of all the weird ways Americans are drawn to one another, how they define themselves in relation to those they love or loathe, and the proverbial ties that bind. All are strange and melancholy. "Bar Joke, Arizona" features all manner of talking creatures, as absurd as the infamous cantina scene in Star Wars. "There isn't really a good end to the story," a duck says, and one is hard pressed to disagree; perhaps instead of looking for a neat conclusion, it's best to simply celebrate the author's considerable way with words. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly

"By turns hilarious and deeply unnerving, deadpan and visionary, disorienting yet disturbingly familiar, the stories in The Great American Songbook ride a path between waking life and a fever dream. Sam Allingham is a true original, one of the bright lights of this new generation of short story writers."—Dan Chaon, author of Await Your Reply and Stay Awake "Sam Allingham is sharp and tender, and these stories swoop and soar with theatrical dexterity."—Emma Straub, author of Modern Lovers "Music filters through this book like notes from a neighbor's window, and it makes everyone dance—nostalgia and invention foxtrot, desire and disappointment waltz, love and loss lean into each other in the dark and sway. The Great American Songbook has humanity—tender, hopeful, faltering humanity—singing and two-stepping beautifully across its pages."—Ramona Ausubel, author of Sons and Daughters of Ease and Plenty and A Guide to Being Born "Sam Allingham's stories touch the deepest levels of the brain like a series of unexpected chord changes. Devastating, funny, insightful, and disarmingly intimate, THE GREAT AMERICAN SONGBOOK stands alongside the very best story collections being written right now."—Paul Lisicky, author of The Narrow Door "Surprising and sonorous."—Kirkus "The Great American Songbook has over 100 wildly heartbreaking and unforgettable characters: bartenders and baristas, musicians and miniaturists, cult members and deer hunters and Broadway composers and ducks (yes, ducks!)—all of them searching for a little light in the darkness. Luckily, they have the outrageously talented Sam Allingham to guide them through these wonderfully sharp pages, where the strange becomes familiar, and the familiar strange, in a way that feels both honest and true—prying open the hinges on that old, rusted box of the human condition, and providing a map (and maybe even a song or two) as assassins and nut jobs and struggling teenagers smash their clarinets, let the birds out of their cages, shout into the night sky across desert canyons, and navigate the distance between loneliness and love."—Hannah Tinti, author of The Good Thief

From the Publisher

Sept. 7, 2016
A debut collection which oscillates in style and subject but not in resonance.Alike only in their timbre, these well-crafted stories are sometimes mischievous, as in “Bar Joke, Arizona,” in which each character embodies the setup of a wisecrack; sometimes solemn, as in “Love Goes to a Building on Fire,” which draws parallels between the various, expanding homes a doomed couple shares; always sedately sincere. Along with substance, Allingham experiments with style: “Rodgers and Hart” appears as an extended list of categories in which two men are compared, one far less favorably. His characters carom from adolescent men with dark fixations to anonymous assassins pitted against one another so that only one may live to famous musician Artie Shaw dedicating songs for other renowned artists such as Lana Turner and Billie Holiday to women grieving and fighting to recover. These latter subjects appear in the two most moving stories of the collection. In “Stockholm Syndrome,” Betty observes the relationships around her, noting, “When you’re closed off from the outside world, you start to take on the worldview of your captor.” She is slowly returning to the world after being derailed by an abusive relationship, and she cares deeply for her cafe co-worker, Thomas, who is himself trapped. In “Husbandry,” Cheryl’s father has recently passed away, and, inconsolable, her mother is slowly changing into someone Cheryl cannot abide: a coldhearted hunter. These stories, surprising and sonorous, ground the collection. But Allingham writes in a lilting prose which makes even the more cheeky stories earnest. Alternately roguish and melancholy, always mellifluous.

Kirkus Review