North of Ordinary

The long-awaited return of a quintessentially American storyteller

"You're as likely to be hit twice by lightning on a Monday as see a wood chipper pull a man into its maw."

So begins North of Ordinary, John Rolfe Gardner's virtuosic story collection of survivors getting by despite the odds in a shifting world. In these pages, we meet a nervous young apprentice to a weathered tree climber; a dangerously obsessed student at a Southern Bible college; an attractive schemer trying to build an audience for her tiny radio station; an undercover, cross-dressing lawman whose friendship changes the life of a deaf child in a suburban cul-de-sac; and an elderly Black mason whose knowledge of the town's history harbors truths that shake his visitor's foundation.

Surprising, touching, and deeply humane, the ten stories of North of Ordinary offer an intimate, revelatory look at our fractured society and pull us together through the power of art.

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Literary Hub “New Books” selection

“A natural turbulence exists driving each story coupled with strong narrative and character development. North of Ordinary will enhance your world view.” —North of Oxford

“A well-crafted collection. . . . Gardiner holds the reader’s attention with his incisive prose. These reflective tales were worth the wait.” —Publishers Weekly

“Traverses notions of locale and loneliness, wandering and wistfulness.” —Booklist

“Wistful, quirky, and laugh-out-loud funny. . . . Gardiner’s art seamlessly elides the ordinary.” —Christopher Benfey, author of A Summer of Hummingbirds and If: The Untold Story of Kipling’s American Years (from the Introduction)

“A lovely, meditative collection, steeped in old ways and days and with a true sense of place.” —Andrea Barrett, author of Ship Fever and Natural History

“What dazzling stories John Rolfe Gardiner writes. His characters, in the best way, are earthbound, caught in the web of work and school and family, past and present. Each story is a world, perfect and complete, and when I read the last one I marveled that so much wisdom and beauty could be contained in a single volume: North of Ordinary.” —Margot Livesey, author of The Flight of Gemma Hardy and The Road from Belhaven

“Thomas McGuane and Larry McMurtry both told me the short story was, to each of them, the most challenging form of prose. Tom said he wrote five novels before he ever turned out one good short story. Larry ceased all attempts at short fiction before I was born. John Rolfe Gardiner seems to have mastered the short story. These are first rate.” —James McMurtry, singer-songwriter

“I’m a fan of John Rolfe Gardiner’s fiction and will read any book he writes. He has the kind of energetic and clear prose I admire.” —Jay Parini, author of The Last Station and The Damascus Road

John Rolfe Gardiner was born in New York and grew up in the Washington, D.C. suburbs of Northern Virginia during World War II. Recipient of a Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Writers Award and National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, he is the author of six novels and four collections of short fiction, including North of Ordinary. His stories have appeared in the New Yorker, American Scholar, Oxford American, One Story, Pushcart Prize anthology, PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories, Best American Short Stories, and elsewhere. Gardiner lives in Middleburg, Virginia, with his wife, ceramic artist Joan Gardiner.

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