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| Photo
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Ken Kalfus
A Disorder Peculiar to the
Country
Ecco/HarperCollins
About the Book
A black comedy
that follows the unraveling of a marriage in the aftermath
of 9/11.
About the Author
Ken Kalfus
is the author of a novel, The Commissariat of Enlightenment,
and the short-story collections Thirst and
Pu-239 and Other Russian Fantasies, all of which
were named New York Times Notable Books. His
writing has appeared in the New York Review of Books,
Harper's, Tin House, and Bomb.
He lives in Philadelphia with his wife and daughter
Suggested Links
http://www.harpercollins.com
Backlist
The Commissariat of Enlightenment,
HarperCollins
Thirst, Milkweed
Editions
Pu-239 and Other Russian
Fantasies, Milkweed Editions
Publicist
Michael McKenzie, michael.mckenzie@harpercollins.com
Excerpt
from A Disorder
Peculiar to the Country
On the way to Newark Joyce
received a call: the talks in Berkeley had collapsed,
conclusively. She closed her eyes for a few moments
and then asked the driver to turn around and head back
through the tunnel. It was still early morning. She
went directly to her office on Hudson Street to sort
out the repercussions from the negotiations’ failure—and
especially how to evade blame for their failure. About
an hour later colleagues were trickling in, passing
by her open door, and Joyce thought she heard someone
say that a plane had flown into the World Trade Center.
The World Trade Center: the words provoked a thought
like a small underground animal to dash from its burrow
into the light before promptly scuttling back in retreat.
She wasn’t sure she had heard the news correctly;
perhaps she had simply imagined it, or had even dozed
off and dreamed it after less than five hours of sleep
the night before. Fighting distraction, she pondered
the phrasing of her report, resolved not to be defensive;
at the same time she wondered whether something had
just happened that would dominate the news for months
to come, until everyone was sick of it. In that case
there would be plenty of time to find out what it was.
She presumed the plane had been a small one, causing
localized damage, if it was a plane at all, if the World
Trade Center had been involved at all. The towers weren’t
visible from her office window, but she could see several
of the company slackers in the adjacent roof garden,
smoking cigarettes and looking downtown. She worked
for a few minutes and then suddenly she heard screaming
and shouts. She thought someone had fallen off the roof.
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