A Fictional History of the United States (with Huge Chunks Missing) Paperback by T Cooper; Adam Mansbach

Product Details

• Publisher: Akashic Books, Ltd. (2006-08-08)
• Language: English
• Paperback: 300 pages
• ISBN-13: 9781933354026
• Item Weight: 328.86 grams
• Dimensions: 21.59 x 13.97 x 1.6 cm

Cooper & Mansbach team with some of today’s most talented writers to vitalize American history.

“This is a ‘people’s history’ with tongue in cheek: delightfully funny, imaginative, but with a subtle undertone of seriousness. I enjoyed it immensely.” —Howard Zinn, author of A People’s History of the United States

History is distorted the moment it’s recorded—and in these politically dishonest times, challenging the stories we’re told is more important than ever. In this groundbreaking anthology of original fiction, a diverse group of America’s best writers takes on the task of creating counter-narratives to mainstream American history. Here are some of the moments and the people left out of the textbooks. Here is what else happened—on the margins of American life, and in between the lines of our history books.

A Fictional History of the United States with Huge Chunks Missing brings together an eclectic array of celebrated authors and cartoonists to create a patchwork, anecdotal history of this complicated country. From the Chinese discovery of America in 1426 to the new McCarthyism of a post–9/11 world, this collection recasts everything from the moon landing to the Lindbergh kidnapping, westward expansion to the sexual proclivities of Civil War officers. Riveting, inventive, and politically vital, this anthology picks up—and yanks on—America’s supposed commitment to seeking the truth . . . even if that truth is revealed in fiction.

Original stories & artwork by: Daniel Alarcon, Amy Bloom, Kate Bornstein, Alexander Chee, T Cooper, Keith Knight, Ron Kovic, Paul La Farge, Felicia Luna Lemus, Adam Mansbach, Valerie Miner, Tommy O’Malley, Neal Pollack, David Rees, Sarah Schulman, Darin Strauss, and Benjamin Weissman.

About the Author

T Cooper is an author, television writer, journalist, and filmmaker whose groundbreaking work has been pushing boundaries both in print and on screen for twenty years. He currently serves as executive producer and writer on The Blacklist, and is the author of nine books, including two best-selling novels. Cooper’s feature documentary Man Made has screened at more than eighty film festivals worldwide, winning fourteen Best Documentary jury and audience awards—in addition to a Sundance Institute Grant (the film is currently available for streaming on Amazon Prime). Cooper is a professor of English and creative writing at Emory University, and one half of Holler Beach Productions.

Adam Mansbach is a novelist, screenwriter, humorist, and cultural critic (in addition to having built an obscene fake children's book empire). His books include Rage Is Back, the California Book Award–winning The End of the Jews, and the best sellers Angry Black White Boy and For This We Left Egypt?, cowritten with Dave Barry and Alan Zweibel. Mansbach was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award for his screenplay for the Netflix Original Barry, and is currently adapting his middle-grade novel Jake the Fake Keeps It Real for the Disney Channel. His work has appeared in the New Yorker, the New York Times Book Review, Esquire, and on National Public Radio's This American Life, the Moth, and All Things Considered.