Overview

Until All You See Is Sky is a report from the front lines of a first-generation American life: growing up as the outsider, parenting without a clue, and persevering in plague times. From the vital meaning of Stan Smiths at the Payless Shoes in his Tampa childhood to what you should have ordered at the now-closed best bakery in Manhattan, from a childhood as a first-generation Greek-Cuban boy who has never lived in Greece or Cuba to being a modern parent wondering how to negotiate life in a pandemic, George Choundas has a story to tell. This award-winning author of short stories now turns to nonfiction, telling true stories with playful language and engaging wit. He sits in the lobby of the Boston Parker House Hotel at dawn to write and imagines what is going on in every head but his own; he survives in a elementary new school by means of The Illiad; he imagines the ends of all the near-strangers who populate our lives; and he wanders through Midtown Manhattan mapping the geography of its idiosyncratic but thoroughly intriguing denizens and visitors with the eye of an expert anthropologist of everyday life. These are the best sort of essays-full of unforgettable characters rendered with clarity and compassion by an inventive and imaginative writer at the top of his form.

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9781958094044

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Reviews

Like his stories, George Choundas's essays are a winning brew of rigor, compassion, humor, and just a touch of melancholy. Reading them will make you feel less alone. -David Leavitt, author of The Lost Language of Cranes, Shelter in Place, and The Page Turner The places of Until All You See Is Sky-from the Parthenon to the Tampa outpost of Payless Shoes and many spots in between-build out a compelling constellation of sites, giving dimension to the father, son, and generous human who anchors this essay collection. With playful language and an unceasing impulse to understand the world around him, Choundas makes his readers see the nooks and crannies of this rock of ours (even Midtown Manhattan!) with a new and expansive appreciation. -Emily Nemens, author of The Cactus League

Author Information

George Choundas's award-winning writing has appeared in over 75 publications. His story collection, The Making Sense of Things (FC2), won the Ronald Sukenick Innovative Fiction Prize and was shortlisted for the Robert C. Jones Prize for Short Prose, the St. Lawrence Book Award for Fiction, and the Katherine Anne Porter Prize in Short Fiction. He is a former FBI agent who worked public corruption in the Bureau's New York Office. His mother, born in Cuba, was a flyer at Macy's Manhattan flagship until she saved enough to travel Europe for a year. His father, born in Greece, was a tanker captain who, aboard a passenger ship transporting him to his next command, met an engaging American tourist with a Cuban accent.

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