A forged Degas masterpiece • a mysterious Connecticut mansion • a hysterical and heartbreaking road trip • a sequestered and grieving husband • war and exile in Sri Lanka • the old country and the new world of one family.

These are the stories, the Fall fiction for Algonquin 2012. Complex, compelling tales already– and you’ve only read a few words, a prepositional phrase or two.  Just imagine when you read more. You want to read more, don’t you? You know you do. It’s OK — you can admit it. You’re among friends here.

And we have more — just a bit more — to whet your appetite for the tempting tales on our Fall 2012 list.

Click here to read and/or download

The Algonquin Reader

The Art Forger by B.A. Shapiro • Life among Giants by Bill Roorbach • The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving by Jonathan Evison • Hikikomori and the Rental Sister by Jeff Backhaus • The Beach at Galle Road by Joanna Luloff • All This Talk of Love by Christopher Castellani

Read the stories behind the stories with essays by each author. Then read the stories — just a bit of them — with an excerpt from each one.

Here are a few more tidbits to pique your interest:

From Bill Roorbach’s essay: “All of these elements tumbled around like socks in a dryer for decades, until one day a figure came into my head. She was a ballerina. She called herself Sylphide. She lived in a mansion across the way.”

From Jeff Backhaus’ essay: “But what really surprised me, what compelled me to keep writing deeper and deeper, was that for all its weirdness, in a way it wasn’t weird at all — these characters’ lives and dreams and frustrations were more familiar and immediate than we might like to admit.”

From Jonathan Evison’s essay: “When I set out to write this novel, I didn’t envision it as a road novel. I’ve never had a desire to write a road novel — in fact, I was very resistant to the idea. But the characters led me to the road. They left me no choice. They all but dragged me kicking and screaming to the road.”