Works by
Stephen Dixon
(Writer)
[1926 - ]

Fiction

• Work (1977)

• Too Late (1978)
  In the timeless city of Malacia, a place swathed in magic and on the brink of war, lives a young man named Perian de Chirolo – a free-spirit, a fearless lover – who embarks on a harrowing odyssey with dramatic consequences for himself and all Malacians. This is a gripping tale of wonder, lust and destiny.

• Fall & Rise (1985)

• Garbage (1988)

• Frog: A Novel (1991) -- Finalist 1991 National Book Award; Finalist 1992 PEN/Faulkner Fiction Award

• Interstate (1995) -- Finalist 1995 National Book Award

• Gould: A Novel in Two Novels (1997)
  "Gould Bookbinder, the protagonist of Stephen Dixon's novel, Gould: A Novel in Two Novels is not a nice man. When we first meet him, he is an opportunistic college freshman in the process of seducing a girl whom he later impregnates. This is just the first of several pregnancies for which Gould accepts no responsibility. He grows older in the first part of the novel--aptly titled "Abortions"--but wisdom is slow to catch up. Not until near the end of the first section, when Gould is in his 40s, does his attitude change. Then he finds himself trying (unsuccessfully) to convince a pregnant girlfriend to have the child. The second part of Gould, entitled "Evangeline," is a flashback to the long affair between Gould and Evangeline--a relationship that lasts as long as it does mainly because of Gould's affection for Evangeline's son. With no paragraphs, no page breaks, and precious little attribution of dialogue, Gould is not an easy book to read. The eye tires of words running unrelieved by white space across the page, and Dixon's idiosyncratic prose style can be irritating. Despite it all, Gould is ultimately a remarkable and rewarding read as Stephen Dixon transforms his creepy antihero into someone who, while perhaps not likeable, is at least sympathetic." -- Amazon.com

• 30: Pieces of a Novel (1999)
  In 30 Dixon presents us with life according to Gould, his brilliant fictional narrator who shares with us his thoroughly examined life from start to several finishes, encompassing his real past, imagined future, mundane present, and a full range of regrets, lapses, misjudgments, feelings, and the whole set of human emotions. All of Gould's foibles-his lusts and obsessions, fears and anxieties-are conveyed with such candor and lack of pretension that we can't help but be seduced into recognizing a little bit of Gould in us or perhaps a lot of us in Gould. For Gould is indeed an Everyman for the end of the millennium, a good man trying to live an honest life without compromise and without losing his mind.

• Tisch (2000)
  This is Stephen Dixon's first written novel -- started in 1961 and completed in 1969 -- and his most seminal work. Readers of Dixon's work will not be disappointed. The character, metaphor and Dixon's honey pot of language are all here, with the story of a man, writhing in his own torment, pulling the reader along as if down a dark, vast, frightening corridor that twists and turns, and leads one always onward.

• I. (2002)
  I. is about a man raising two young daughters while caring for his wife, victim of a debilitating disease. This deeply personal book is a profoundly moving study of a man facing mortality while reveling in the bounty of his life--all told with Dixon's trademark honesty, lucidity, and expansive humor.

• Old Friends (2004)
  A lifelong friendship between two writers arises in this innovative, absorbing novel from an award-winning writer. From its earnest beginnings to its sometimes hysterical, heart-wrenching moments, the friendship becomes an unsurpassed bond that keeps the men together, even to the very end. Trenchant humor and blunt observation infuse this celebration of the writing life, friendship, and love from a celebrated prose stylist.

• Phone Rings (2005)
  A shocking phone call in the first sentence sparks a soaring tour-de-force saga by the writer Publishers Weekly deemed "a hip Saul Bellow."
  
  It is the tale of two brothers, years apart in age, who have become close late in life. But the freakish death of one at the book's outset sends the other reeling into a shattered yet strangely exhilarating revisitation of their lives together.
  
  Phone Rings is the work of a master at the peak of his form: a beautiful overlapping of scenes both remembered and ongoing, told with tenderness and an antic, laugh-out-loud sense of humor. In Dixon's inimitable mix of absorbing narrative, deceptively simple prose, and waggishly innovative style, it becomes the sprawling chronicle of a large Jewish family in mid-century New York City, surviving three wars, the 1960s cultural revolution, marriages, divorces, births, and deaths. . . . Is it all lost with the piercing sound of a ringing phone? Or is that the chance to realize the possibility of transcendence?
  
  Stephen Dixon has long been considered the "secret master" of American fiction by great writers such as Jonathan Lethem. In this book, he may well have written his masterpiece.

• End of I. (2006)
  Three years ago, McSweeney’s published Stephen Dixon’s acclaimed I. Now, the two-time National Book Award nominee revisits that book’s intimate territory, tightening his unflinching focus even as he widens the scope. Dixon is still a master stylist, and the narrator's tense, breakneck reflections on loss in all contexts are imbued with remarkable urgency and warmth.

• No relief (1976)

• Quite Contrary: The Mary and Newt Story (1979)

• 14 Stories (1980)
  Stephen Dixon's stories and novels have an original, immediately recognizable sound and feel --a weird blend of Franz Kafka and Frank Capra. Readers of his previous work will find in 14 Stories that same wry, inventive, knife-edged humor that has come to characterize his distinctive style. With an adroit use of language and a keen eye for the quirky, offbeat side of human nature, Dixon creates a world as viewed through a fish-eye lens--slightly distorted and off-center, yet recognizable and often familiar.

  14 Stories is part comedy, part tragedy, part social comment and part spoof. But most of all it is a highly entertaining series of all-too-plausible vignettes that shows off Stephen Dixon's remarkable talent at its best.

• Movies: Seventeen Stories (1983)

• Time to Go (Will and Magna Stories (1984)
  In Time to Go, the author of the highly acclaimed 14 Stories, Long Made Short, and All Gone has written a dazzling book of eighteen interlocking pieces. Part short story collection, part novel, Time to Go moves from despair to hope, from the passing of things -- time, relationships, businesses, chances -- to the coming of marriage, stability, family, a new life. It is a book that can be in turn frightening and funny, touching and tough -- and one that is, on occasion, all these things at once.

• The Play and Other Stories (1988)

• Love and Will: Twenty Stories (1989)

• All Gone: 18 Short Stories (1990)

• Friends: More Will and Magna Stories (1990)
  In the ten stories that comprise Friends, Dixon, a two-time National Book Award finalist for his novels Frog and Interstate, writes with his unusual flair, wit, and gentle irony. Through Will and Magna, characters he first introduced in his first collection Time To Go, Dixon offers many insights into the complexities and richness of human relationships.

• Long Made Short: Stories (1994)

• The Stories of Stephen Dixon (1994)

• Man on Stage: Play Stories (1996)

• Sleep (1999) -- Winner 1996 Best American Short Story
  Short stories from the past twenty-five years by a master of contemporary fiction, collected in book form for the first time. "Dixon's quirky style almost renders ordinary exposition unnecessary. Instead, Dixon careens back and forth between machine-gun dialogue and description, merging thoughts, conversation, and other absurd narrative into a single mind blurring entity" -- Bob McCullough, The Boston Globe. Stephen Dixon is a two-time finalist for the national Book Award, for FROG and INTERSTATE, and the author of twenty books, among them PLAY AND OTHER STORIES also by Coffee House. The stories in SLEEP have previously appeared in such places as Harper's, Triquarterly, and Best American Short Stories.

• Virtually Now: Stories of Science, Technology and the Future (1996), Jeanne Schinto, ed.

• Switch (1999)
  Single story; Rain Taxi Brainstorm Series, #3

• The Idaho Review, Volume II (1999)
  With Alan Cheuse, Alyson Hagy, Brendan Galvin, David Borofka,  David Citino, James Harms, Janet Holmes, Larissa Szporluk, Mitch Wieland, Stephen Dixon, Stephen Minot, Thomas Rabbitt, and Tom Trusky.  The Idaho Review is an annual Literary Journal published by Boise State University.

• Gift of the Gag (2000) with Deirdre Falvey

• The Idaho Review, Volume IV (2002)
  With Adam Desnoyers, Alan Cheuse, Alix Strauss, Anthony Doerr, Brendan Galvin, Carol Bly, David Citino, Doris Betts, Michael Parker, Mitch Wieland, Rick Bass, Stephen Dixon, and William Kittredge.

• Land-Grant College Review Issue No. One (2003), Aimee Bender, ed.
  The Land-Grant College Review's first issue features new fiction by Aimee Bender, Chris Potter, Dave Koch, Josh Melrod, Josip Novakovich, Karen Rile, Ken Sparling, Marc Estrin, Robert Olmstead, Ron Carlson, Sara Gran, Stephen Dixon, and Thaddeus Rutkowski; an interview with Thisbe Nissen; and artwork by Joy Kolitsky.