Beautiful Man

When life is upended, what do you do? Do you remain as you were, trapped in a form of stasis? Or do you accept your losses and move forward? These questions and more are the heart of The Handsome Man. These linked stories follow several years of the life of a young man as he is drawn around the world: from Toronto to Montreal, New York, Ohio, New Mexico, British Columbia, Berlin, Rome, and northern Ontario, along the way meeting hippies, healers, drinkers, movie stars, old friends, and welcoming strangers. He isn't travelling, however; he's running away. But as far and fast as he runs, the world won't let him disappear, and each new encounter and every lost soul he meets along this journey brings him closer and closer to certain truths he'd locked away: how to trust, how to live in this world, and most of all, how to love again. Praise for The Handsome Man "I admire the emotional openness, tenderness and deeply uncynical tone of The Handsome Man, a novel-in-stories that feels unlike anything else I've read recently. Brad Casey's fiction debut is a gem that celebrates little blips of happiness and small, elusive moments of genuine human connection." --Guillaume Morissette, author of New Tab and The Original Face "if yu want a book uv amayzing n brillyant prose short storeez that ar long in theyr implikaysyuns look no furthr ths wundrful book is what yu ar looking 4 ths is beautiful writing with full orchestraysyun n minimalist accents enjoy" --bill bissett

1833, Catherine Jane Hamilton returned from India to Edinburgh to seek a divorce from her husband, the physician Alexander Lesassier. The charge was adultery, and proof for it lay in a trunk containing her husband's personal papers. Catherine won her suit without difficulty and the trunk was deposited in the library of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. Alexander Lesassier died in 1839 during the First Afghan War; his trunk and its contents remained untouched for the next century and a half. It has now been opened and a remarkable tale, told in remarkable detail, has spilled forth. The life of Alexander Lesassier, as expertly reconstructed by Lisa Rosner, affords startling insight into the sensibilities of an era and of the man who, in his own eyes and those of the women who adored him, was its most perfect creation. Affable and self-absorbed, engaging and ignoble Lesassier was a physician, military surgeon, and novelist, who was also a shameless opportunist, charming scoundrel, seducer, and survivor. His is the story of a failed medical man who wanted to be something different and saw himself as entitled to more than he had; someone who can always be guaranteed to make the wrong choice, and then protest that he has done well. This fascinating and deeply absorbing book offers rare insights into Georgian, Regency, and early Victorian Britain through the fortunes and misfortunes, hopes and whims, of "the most beautiful man in existence."

Burne Manda knows a lot goes into photographing a hunk-filled calendar titled Beautiful Man to raise money for a non-profit AIDS organization in Pittsburgh. He’s in charge of the project, overseeing his assistant Timmy, his makeup artist Georgina, and the new intern Late. Burne is also responsible for shooting twelve models for the calendar: promiscuous twins, a bad boy with bullying issues, a stranger named Tinder, and others. Of all the men in Burne’s life, there’s only one he has a crush on -- local weatherman Kevin Mercer. Kevin’s a dreamboat and knows how to charm Burne, who’s clueless about starting a relationship with the guy. Burne may know how to photograph beautiful men, but he doesn’t know how to fall in love with a guy. Is it too late for Burne to change the pathway of his heart? Or is someone like Kevin going to forecast love for Burne, and modify his life forever?

Spending years in passionless partnerships, Jacquie Somerville never completely threw her body, heart and soul over the bar, never entirely losing herself in the bliss and sheer pleasure of unbridled intimacy. That is until at 46, a Beautiful and passionate young American man entered her world and rocked and shocked her carefully curated life. This is the story of how that troubled, loving, sexy, crazy, deep, messed up, passionate, wild young man took her to staggering emotional depths of despair and physical heights of ecstasy few ever experience. It's about how loving him split open her heart and exposed her soul to the true meaning of unconditional love and to the staggering and underestimated power of white-hot passion. She discovered that a human being possessed by love feels capable of doing the impossible; that pushing the envelope, sexual experimentation, and saying YES results in a connection so deep it can never be broken. Not even by murder or betrayal.This sensational story is also told from the stage in Jacquie's live one -woman show, One Woman After Dark. For tickets go to www.onewomanafterdark.comJacquie Somerville is a bestselling author, entertainer and passion coach. She was born and raised in South Africa, is a Canadian citizen and a resident of Los Angeles, California.For more go to www.jacquiesomerville.com

Brown Eyed Handsome Man: The Life and Hard Times of Chuck Berry draws on dozens of interviews done by the author himself and voluminous public records to paint a complete picture of this complicated figure. This biography uncovers the real Berry and provides us with a stirring, unvarnished portrait of both the man and the artist. Berry has long been one of pop music's most enigmatic personalities. Growing up in a middle-class, black neighborhood in St. Louis, his first major hit song, "Maybellene," was an adaptation of a white country song, wedded to a black-influenced beat. Thereafter came a string of brilliant songs celebrating teenage life in the '50s, including "School Day," "Johnny B. Goode," and "Sweet Little Sixteen." Berry's career rise was meteoric; but his fall came equally quickly, when his relations with an underage girl led to his conviction. It was not his first (nor his last) run in with the law. He scored his biggest hit in the early '70s with the comical (and some would say decidedly lightweight) song "My Ding-a-Ling." The following decades brought hundreds of nights of tours, with little attention from the recording industry. Bruce Pegg offers the definitive, though not always pretty, portrait of one of the greatest stars of rock and roll, a story that will appeal to all fans of American popular music.

A young father struggles to shield his adopted child from the calculated, measured care of his wife. Two brothers and their wives combine feuding energies to provide an unforgettable holiday treat for the family matriarch. And a hotel manager eclipses the life of a girl captured by his beauty. After ten years, author Jack Mauro picks up the threads of his Gay Street: Stories of Knoxville, Tennessee. The twelve tales of Beautiful Man and Other Stories open doors to the sadness, the flashes of humor, and the implacable reality of the Southern city he loves so much.

O, The Oprah Magazine's 20 Best Titles of the Year Time Magazine's 100 Books to Read in 2020 Financial Times' Best Books of 2020 Esquire's Best Books of 2020 New York Times Editors' Choice Lit Hub's Best Books of 2020 Bustle's Best Short Story Collections of 2020 Electric Literature's Favorite Short Story Collections of 2020 Library Journal's Best Short Stories of 2020 “Superb. . . . Krauss’s depictions of the nuances of sex and love, intimacy and dependence, call to mind the work of Natalia Ginzburg in their psychological profundity, their intellectual rigor. . . . Krauss’s stories capture characters at moments in their lives when they’re hungry for experience and open to possibilities, and that openness extends to the stories themselves: narratives too urgent and alive for neat plotlines, simplistic resolutions or easy answers.” —Molly Antopol, New York Times Book Review “From a contemporary master, an astounding collection of ten globetrotting stories, each one a powerful dissection of the thorny connections between men and women. . . . Each story is masterfully crafted and deeply contemplative, barreling toward a shimmering, inevitable conclusion, proving once again that Krauss is one of our most formidable talents in fiction.” —Esquire In one of her strongest works of fiction yet, Nicole Krauss plunges fearlessly into the struggle to understand what it is to be a man and what it is to be a woman, and the arising tensions that have existed from the very beginning of time. Set in our contemporary moment, and moving across the globe from Switzerland, Japan, and New York City to Tel Aviv, Los Angeles, and South America, the stories in To Be a Man feature male characters as fathers, lovers, friends, children, seducers, and even a lost husband who may never have been a husband at all. The way these stories mirror one other and resonate is beautiful, with a balance so finely tuned that the book almost feels like a novel. Echoes ring through stages of life: aging parents and new-born babies; young women’s coming of age and the newfound, somewhat bewildering sexual power that accompanies it; generational gaps and unexpected deliveries of strange new leases on life; mystery and wonder at a life lived or a future waiting to unfold. To Be a Man illuminates with a fierce, unwavering light the forces driving human existence: sex, power, violence, passion, self-discovery, growing older. Profound, poignant, and brilliant, Krauss’s stories are at once startling and deeply moving, but always revealing of all-too-human weakness and strength.