Prodigals: Stories - Tapa blanda

'This debut collection ponders how we come of age today, now that the old signifiers - marriage, career, kids - are by no means guaranteed. It shines a spotlight on a privileged 1 per cent to whom everything seemed possible until it wasn't' -- New Statesman

'This hotly-tipped American writer proves himself to be the heir of Bret Easton Ellis with the opening story in this excellent collection [depicting] the foundering, drugged-out lives of a group privileged knowing thirty-somethings with a brilliance not seen in American writing since Ellis's epoch-defining Less Than Zero. Jackson is a good degree more compassionate than Ellis, though, and a juicier writer. These stories, peopled by characters not always likeable but blessed with a hyper-articulate self-awareness, are particularly concerned with ambiguous relationships and sing with a life force which is witty, ugly, dazzling and true' -- Metro

'Unique and often very funny too. 'Wagner in the Desert' is both hilarious and unsettling, as is the incredibly witty and surprisingly sad reflection on loneliness in 'Epithalamium'... Jackson at his best [is] able to veer between a sense of unease throughout... A thing of beauty - balanced, entertaining, incisive and poignant. Prodigals is a remarkable debut' -- Sunday Independent

'Jackson's funny, vibrant and insightful storytelling, highs and lows included, makes you wish you were there... A terrific writer and Prodigals deserves to be on your reading list' -- Esquire

'Timely in feel [and] superbly elegant... [Jackson] trains his eye on millenials, addicated to social media, too drug-deadened to be neurotic, caught somewhere between satire and glorification' -- Daily Telegraph

'An intellectually charged debut by a very gifted writer... With humour, cut-throat dialogue and drug-fuelled escapades gripping the reader from the off... Comparisons have understandably been made to the writing of Martin Amis and Ian McEwan, but there's also an ultra-modern, American feel to these stories that aligns them to writers such as David Foster Wallace and Gary Shteyngart' -- Irish Times

'Greg Jackson is the latest virtuoso on the US literary scene, writing stylistically self-conscious stories [where] the characters inevitably end up reflecting on the futility of their existence... The locations are lavish [and] the prose is sonorous... Prodigals represents the most fashionable form of the short story, nibbling at its own limits like a frantic addict' -- Spectator

'There are flashes of genius in which the metaphysical concerns are sublimated, in the manner of Borges... Thrilling' -- Literary Review

'Compelling' -- Sunday Herald

'These are tales about how we try to escape [our] identities, to fulfil the sense of ourselves as special by experimenting with drugs, hedonism, bohemianism, sex and role-play' -- Times Literary Supplement

'Literature was born to delve into our infinite desires and disappointments... Prodigals oozes cool... Jackson's stories are not only fresh and innovative, his words fizz with an acid tang. Moreover, the sharpness of human observation - the bare-naked honesty on display here - is eye-watering... Jackson is style conscious - he not only wants to tell a good tale but titillate with its construction. Others will similarly experiment and fail but Jackson pulls it off... To witness the arrival of a new voice - one that rises above the cacophony on merit alone - is a rare privilege. and without doubt, Greg Jackson is just that - the real thing' --Bookmunch

'This is a whirring joyride of short stories. Jackson's debut collection is a satirical portrait of the elite, the aspirationally bookish types likely to be reading these stories... This brilliant book is like dating a clever boy with a prodigious vocabulary, you sometimes feel left behind, but are ultimately gratified for being invited along in the first place' -- TANK Magazine

'The writing in Greg Jackson's first book of stories, Prodigals, is so bold and perceptive that it delivers a contact high. You know from the first pages that, intellectually, you've climbed into a high-performance sports car... There's [...] the crunch of writers like Ian McEwan and Martin Amis in Mr. Jackson's prose. Best of all there's that sense [...] that whatever topic the author turns his mental LED lights toward will be powerfully illuminated... What makes these stories radiant, rather than meekly prickly, is how invested Mr. Jackson is in peeling off the rind of life, in getting to the juice' --New York Times

'[A] Deeply felt and sparklingly erudite debut collection... Jackson's exquisite insight and mandarin prose style call to mind David Foster Wallace and Ben Lerner, but his preoccupation with the demise of romance, wonderment, and spirituality in our hyper-knowing age seem entirely his own' -- Publishers Weekly

'An admirable debut that cannily captures the difficulty of balancing good deeds with bad behavior' -- Kirkus Reviews

Daring and innovative... Jackson proves himself a dexterous, compelling new talent' -- Booklist

'Greg Jackson's stories are deft, compact, intelligent, and beautifully aimed. The short story, in our accelerating present, has advantages over its bulkier and slower-moving rival, the novel. Greg Jackson exploits such advantages in these fractal-like captures of moments and sequences from our current disorders' -- Norman Rush

'Greg Jackson is an uncommonly good writer wickedly funny and deeply perceptive and Prodigals is one of the most absorbing, intelligent, and unnervingly dead-on collections I've read in ages. I loved it' -- Molly Antopol

'This ultra-contemporary collection evokes a rarefied world of hyper-educated, over-stimulated people caught in the grip of their own privileged consciousness. Transcendence-seekers find themselves earthbound as art, drugs, role-playing, and material goods serve as temporary balms for the anomie of modern life. The elusive cure is love, and Jackson nails the way sophisticated, hard-bitten entanglements give way to sudden surges of old-fashioned romance. Jackson writes with terrific fluency, wielding Fitzgeraldian phrases as he presses through to endings full of feeling' -- Matthew Thomas

'Greg Jackson is an explosive writer, seriously funny, deeply serious. Prodigals is a memorable, powerful debut, full of dark splendor, and it's clear that Jackson is here to stay -- Sam Lipsyte

'Inventive, daring, and exhilarating, the stories in Prodigals offer a vital, volatile mix of style and heart, slyness and candor. Read these stories and find yourself newly awake, thin-skinned to the world' -- Maggie Shipstead

'Greg Jackson's Prodigals is that rare treat: a narrative inquiry into the nature of narrative that is neither tedious nor tired, that takes itself just seriously enough. His lyric virtuosity is thrilling, his sensibility acute and nuanced, but it was something deeper than either of these things that ultimately compelled me in these stories: It was a genuine sense of searching without irony or apology, with fierce intelligence for what might constitute a meaningful life' -- Leslie Jamison

'Prodigals is elegant and unpredictable. These stories of bewilderment, heartbreak and psychotropics will charm you with their humor and stun you with wisdom that's both rigorous and compassionate' --Catherine Lacey

Adrift in lives of possibility and limitation, the flawed, struggling and sympathetic characters of these desperate, eerie stories seek refuge from meaninglessness and boredom in love, art, friendship, drugs, and sex. A journalist is either the guest or captive of a reclusive former tennis star at his mansion in the French hills; a terrible storm forces a man and a woman, who may be his therapist, to flee New York together; the artistic ambitions of a banker are laid bare when he comes under the influence of two strange sisters. Unflinching, funny and profound, Prodigals maps the degradations of contemporary life - from the deification of celebrity, to the impotence of violence, to the psychological debts of privilege, to the loss of grand narratives - with unusual insight, sincerity, and passion. It is a fiercely honest and heartfelt look at what we have become, the comedy of our foibles, and our longing for home.