<div><p>&quot;Leave it to the audacious Sean Carswell to crack the code on this secret society of writers, especially after so many other publications (the<i>Believer</i>, <i>Bitch!</i>, <i>Vanity Fair</i>) have tried and failed. I'm humbled and grateful to be immortalized in this wily, coltish collection with fellow strummers Flannery, Herman and weird old Uncle Thom.&quot;Pam Houston</p><p>&quot;On the surface, Carswell is a literary chameleon, moving effortlessly in and out of voices, genres, and styles, but underneath and above that, he is a born storyteller, always focused on his characters' hearts and minds and fitting ends.&quot;Ben Loory, author of <i>Stories for Nighttime and Some for the Day</i></p><p>We all know Herman Melville, Jack Kerouac, Thomas Pynchon, Flannery O'Connor, Raymond Chandler, Chester Himes, and Pam Houston. Now meet their metaphysical ukuleles.</p><p>Mixing the flair of literary invention with real events in each writer's lifeHerman Melville living with a tribe of cannibals; Raymond Chandler holding<i>The Blue Dahlia </i>hostage from Paramount Studios; Flannery O'Connor falling in love; Chester Himes threatening to decapitate his landlord, and many moreSean Carswell takes the nonfiction of some our most famous writer's lives and turns it into exquisite fiction, with a ukulele thrown in for good measure. At times heartbreaking, at times absurd, the stories in this truly one of a kind collection delightfully blur the line between what is life, and what is literature.</p><p><b>Sean Carswell </b>is the author of the novels <i>Drinks for the Little Guy</i>,<i>Train Wreck Girl</i>, and <i>Madhouse Fog</i>, and the short story collections<i>Barney's Crew </i>and <i>Glue and Ink Rebellion</i>. He co-founded the independent book publisher Gorsky Press and the music magazine<i>Razorcake</i>. He currently teaches writing and literature at California State University, Channel Islands.</p></div>