The Wall of the Sky, the Wall of the Eye

Jonathan Lethem again displays his brilliance in this collection of seven short stories, blurring the boundaries of sci-fi, mystery, and thriller. Tales include 'Light and the Sufferer', in which a crack addict is dogged by an invulnerable alien; 'The Hardened Criminals', wherein convicts are used as building blocks for new prisons; and 'The Happy Man', whose hapless protagonist is raised from the dead to support his family, only to suffer periodic out-of-body sojourns in Hell. Each tale features Lethem's characteristic deadpan wit and unflinchingly macabre vision of life.

Jonathan Lethem was born in New York and attended Bennington College. He is the author of seven novels including Fortress of Solitude and Motherless Brooklyn, which was named Novel of the Year by Esquire and won the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Salon Book Award, as well as the Macallan Crime Writers Association Gold Dagger. He has also written two short story collections, a novella and a collection of essays, edited The Vintage Book ofAmnesia, guest-edited The Year's BestMusic Writing 2002, and was the founding fiction editor of Fence magazine. His writings have appeared in the New Yorker, Rolling Stone, McSweeney's and many other periodicals. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.