“A quietly astonishing collection”—The New York Times
About The Disappeared
A collection of stories that trace the threads of loss and displacement running through all our lives, by the acclaimed, award-winning author of The Theory of Light and Matter
“What a beautiful book about the profound mystery of ordinary life.” —Alix Ohlin, author of We Want What We Want
A husband and wife hear a mysterious bump in the night. A father mourns the closeness he has lost with his son. A friendship with a married couple turns into a dangerous codependency. With gorgeous sensitivity, assurance, and a propulsive sense of menace, these stories center on disappearances both literal and figurative—lives and loves that are cut short, the vanishing of one’s youthful self. From San Antonio to Austin, from the clamor of a crowded restaurant to the cigarette at a lonely kitchen table, Andrew Porter captures each of these relationships mid-flight, every individual life punctuated by loss and beauty and need. The Disappeared reaffirms the undeniable artistry of a contemporary master of the form.
“A quietly astonishing collection . . . These stories are cleareyed and unadorned, invested with just as much authority as they require to do their appointed work, like a row of votive candles in the dark recess of a church.” —Justin Taylor, New York Times Book Review
“A great paradox sits at the heart of Andrew Porter’s excellent new story collection: How can we seem so firmly and comfortably settled in our lives, and yet be so utterly, desperately lost? Porter has a rare feel for the emotions that reveal our truest selves, and for the weight of the doubts, regrets and memories that pile up as the years go by. Love, loss, defeats large and small, these are all rendered to haunting effect in The Disappeared, and it’s a testament to Porter’s brilliant writing that these gorgeous, gutting stories haunt me still.” —Ben Fountain, author of Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk
“The stories in The Disappeared are works of genius for precisely this reason. As you read, you’re bound to find yourself, like me . . . marveling at Porter’s perfect sentences, and the world he creates for us, one in which we can’t help but be present.” —Kristopher Jansma (in Electric Literature), author of Why We Came to the City
“Porter shows his literary prowess in The Disappeared.” —Dallas Morning News
“Every story in the collection is beautifully constructed, consisting of elegant, at times lyrical prose, is engaging, and is propelled by a compelling, astute narrative voice.” —New York Journal of Books
“The stories in The Disappeared, like his debut, are precisely tuned to the micro moments of our everyday lives, which is to say, in his stories, Porter continues to show us wise, patient, and astute perspectives on the human condition.” —Keith Pilapil Lesmeister, BOMB
“Let me phrase this as a question: Is there an American writer who writes such exquisite, heartbreaking and achingly memorable stories as Andrew Porter? I can’t name one. I’ll have The Disappeared with me, as I’ll have The Theory of Light and Matter—for the duration.” —Peter Orner, author of Esther Stories
“These tremendously moving, elegant, neo-Cheeveresque gems are fantastic. Too much wine, too much love, too much marriage, too many misunderstandings—all of it makes for deeply perfect reading.” —Deb Olin Unferth, author of Barn 8
“Poignant and devastating . . . Porter is a master of the form.” —Booklist (starred)
“He has been able, like Chekhov before, to reach an aesthetic of regret. [Porter’s men] are fantastic examples of modern character and all its necessary anxiety.” —Chicago Review of Books
“[One of the] don’t miss collections by rising stars.” —Library Journal
“These tender, touching stories are about things we hold onto, our anxieties and hopes and dreams, and the things that slip through our fingers—love, youth, the people we used to be. What a beautiful book about the profound mystery of ordinary life.” —Alix Ohlin, author of Dual Citizens
“Read this excellent collection and you’ll come away convinced that the secret subject of all writing is time. Certainly it’s the oldest, a little older than love itself, and in Andrew Porter’s supple vision time is our most intimate antagonist, our lover and our foe. It’s time that turns a passing doubt into a haunted house, time that makes of our most cherished hopes an echo chamber of losses, time that breaks even the strongest hearts. And yet without time and our suffering we would have no soul, and these stories have soul to spare. Italo Calvino claims a classic never finishes saying what it has to say, and by that measure The Disappeared is classic.” —Charles D’Ambrosio, author of The Dead Fish Museum
“The strongest stories [are] shot through with almost subliminal strangeness and build towards endings of uncanny attenuation, endings worthy of Raymond Carver.” —Justin Taylor, New York Times Book Review
“No writers have captured the joy and pain of self-discovery that literature can provide as Andrew Porter. . . . I recommend this book to anyone who wants to rediscover their own story.” —Choi Eun-Young, author of Shoko’s Smile
“[An] excellent collection . . . full of insight and moral clarity, with the type of assured voice that can’t be taught.”—Brian Castleberry, author of Nine Shiny Objects
“At their best, short stories can articulate a feeling you could never otherwise explain. At their very best, you recognize those feelings from your own life. That was my experience, time and time again, reading The Disappeared by Andrew Porter.” —Ethan Chatagnier, author of Singer Distance
“What an exquisite collection! Each story was virtually perfect. Infused with longing and existential loss, with cigarettes and wine, with mid-life couples searching for something . . . This was probably one of my two most recommended books of the year.” —Leslie Pietrzyk author of This Angel on My Chest
“Porter writes with honesty and grace about men and women struggling to make sense of their shifting lives.”—Chuck Augello, Identity Theory