all around they're taking down the lights
by Adam Berlin
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Pub Date Aug 09 2024 | Archive Date Not set
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Description
Stories about movies and the underside of trying to live up to male tropes. The men in these stories hurt and get hurt. They push too hard and not enough. They disappoint others and themselves. Their movie-moves damage. And their small successes, sometimes empty, sometimes meaningful, happen far from Hollywood.
A Note From the Publisher
WINNER TARTT FIRST FICTION AWARD
Advance Praise
“All Around They’re Taking Down the Lights is full of bruised dreamers searching for a better shake in things and often losing their grip. Adam Berlin captures his leading men with tender and ruthless precision. A bracing collection.”—Steve Almond, author of My Life in Heavy Metal and All the Secrets of the World
"His subject may be the movies, but please don't mistake Adam Berlin for a Hollywood hack -- he's a master stylist, and these sharp, sleek stories of masculinity and its discontents breathe fresh life into the form."—Adam Wilson, author of Sensation Machines and Flatscreen.
Marketing Plan
Review galleys, ads in Rain Taxi, P & W, New Pages
Review galleys, ads in Rain Taxi, P & W, New Pages
Available Editions
| EDITION | Paperback |
| ISBN | 9781604893793 |
| PRICE | $19.95 (USD) |
| PAGES | 206 |
Available on NetGalley
Featured Reviews
Reviewer 1246022
All Around They’re Taking Down The Lights by Adam Berlin is a collection of short pieces exploring masculinity. These men are flawed, making them relatable. You might know some of them, you might even be one of these fellas.
They are presented to us as is and without judgment. Some reflect on themselves and their masculinity, others don't. Deciding if they're good people or not is up to the reader. I don't think that's the point of the presentation but I'm not standing in the way if someone wants to call some of these guys what they are.
The idea of masculinity and the tropes that come with it are on full display in these pages. This isn't a celebration though. You can't, or at least shouldn't, come away from this collection thinking about how great conventional ideas about masculinity are. At the same time, this isn't a condemnation.
This is a collection about making it. The reader is given the chance to consider what we mean when we say: Make It. Those two magical, powerful words that seem to mostly come from people who haven't made it.
This collection is a sort of purgatory for men who keep repeating the mantra that they're going to make it. At the same time, if Hollywood is a boulevard of broken dreams, this collection is a graveyard. Each story a tombstone for some victim who either didn't make it or is stuck in a futile infinite loop of trying to make it, always this close to making it, thinking that making it is just around the corner.
These don't always go where you expect, and they don't always end how you would guess. I think there's a nuanced struggle at the core of what I call ‘masculinity under patriarchy’, and these stories tap into or hint at that uncomfortable truth. I enjoyed these.
