Oblivion

An After Autobiography

By Robin Hemley

2022

First Published

3.91

Average Rating

194

Number of Pages

5H55M

Audio Length

Where do writers go when they die? The forgotten ones, at least, go to The Cafe of Minor Authors where they drink endless cups of cappuccino, self-obsess, and nurse their shattered dreams. Some authors, it's rumored, can escape Oblivion if they try hard enough to write something the universe can't ignore, even after death. This is the story of one ambitious writer stuck in oblivion who not only risks upturning his own fate but also the fate of his literary hero, and that of his great grandmother, Hanna, an aspiring actor in the Yiddish theater in the Prague of 1911. This book is for anyone who has ever wanted to be an author, anyone who knows an author, anyone who is an author, recognized or not, and anyone who loves books enough to want to spend their afterlife reading forgotten classics in the great library of Oblivion. "A mesmerizing meditation on immortality, both the literary and fleshly kinds and its ultimate unattainability... like language, like summer, like love, Oblivion is irresistible ." - Junot Diaz, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction "A tour de force. Oblivion is a marvel of the imagination and intellect. Hemley has . . .created a book that is a relentless page funny and wise, exuberant and sad, insightful and magical, and-most wonderful of all-deeply, deeply human."- Connie May Fowler, author of How Clarissa Burden Learned to Fly "Oblivion is a deeply intelligent and strikingly honest exploration of what ultimately drives a writer to write, and the cold loneliness of the journey, and how literary success in one's lifetime is, at best, a fickle proposition. I will tell every writer I know, struggling or successful, to read this book." - Kaylie Jones, author of Lies My Mother Never Told A Memoir.

Avg Rating

3.91

Number of Ratings

5 STARS

43%

4 STARS

22%

3 STARS

22%

2 STARS

1 STARS

goodreads

Author

Robin Hemley

Author · 13 books

Robin Hemley has published seven books of nonfiction and fiction. His latest book, Invented Eden, The Elusive, Disputed History of the Tasaday deals with a purported anthropological hoax in the Philippines. James Hamilton Paterson, writing in the London Review of Books, call Invented Eden, "brave and wholly convincing." John Leonard writes in Harpers, "Besides a terrific story, Invented Eden is a savvy caution." Invented Eden was an American Library Association's Editor's Choice book for 2003. Robin Hemley co-edited the anthology Extreme Fiction:Fabulists and formalists with Michael Martone, and is the author of the memoir, Nola: A Memoir Of Faith, Art And Madness, which won an Independent Press Book Award for Nonfiction. His popular craft book Turning Life Into Fiction, which was a Book-of-the-Month Club selection as well as a Quality Paperback Book Club Selection has sold over 40,000 copies and will soon be reissued by Graywolf Press. He is also the author of the novel, The Last Studebaker and the story collections, The Big Ear and All You Can Eat. His awards for his fiction include, The Nelson Algren Award from The Chicago Tribune, The George Garrett Award for Fiction from Willow Springs, the Hugh J. Luke Award from Prairie Schooner, two Pushcart Prizes, and many others. He has published his work in many of the best literary magazines in the country, including Ploughshares, Prairie Schooner, Shenandoah, Willow Springs, Boulevard, Witness, ACM, North American Review, and many others. His fiction has been widely anthologized, translated, and heard on NPR's "Selected Shorts" and others. He is a graduate of the Iowa Writers Workshop and has taught at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Western Washington Univeristy, St. Lawrence University, Vermont College, and the University of Utah, and in many Summer writing conferences. He was also the Editor-in-Chief of the Bellingham Review for five years.