American Home Life - Couverture souple

A comic novel of contemporary suburban fatherhood, American Home Life tackles the domestic, tragicomic, and futuristic (talking appliances, chore cards, I.D. chips, corporate schools, and shock bracelets that force you to lose weight). “We all have our lists of writers we love, those writers not everyone in the world knows about but should. Sometimes we keep these writers close to us and don’t tell anyone. But the hell with all that. A great, talented writer deserves to be known to everyone, which is one reason why you should read the work of David Barringer.”—Bob Sassone, Professor Barnhardt’s Journal “Really, really excellent, highly recommended for any dad with young kids. It’s written 15 minutes into the future, so there’s a few places where he’s talking about a certain technology, and you’re like ‘Wait, do we have that?’ It’s fun. The chapter called ‘Fact’ is something I want every person on the planet to read. One of my favorite chapters of all time.”—Kevin Fanning, author of Jennifer Love Hewitt Times Infinity “It’s not every day I find a book I love. Barringer examines a couple’s playful attempt to raise two well-rounded children, while preventing them from being trapped by greed, envy and the monotony of suburban life. The book jacket calls it ‘the literary equivalent of a TV sitcom,’ which would make sense if sitcoms were smart, funny and addictive.”—Stacy Cottrell, San Diego AIGA “Henry Doran, narrator and father in the novel, relies on his own imagination to keep daughter Lilly and son Lance engaged with the world.... It is also, finally, a novel about how to be an artist and a father at once, as Henry struggles to balance his own writing and creativity with paying bills and washing dishes and taking care of sick children... I hope I can be as imaginative a father as Henry Doran, and perhaps write about it half as well as David Barringer has.”—Steven Himmer, Tawny Grammar “Edgy, funny, heartfelt, with a smidgen of George Saunders and a touch of Aimee Bender, Barringer’s American Home Life is an original American confection: bittersweet, satisfying, and true.”—Dave Housley, Barrelhouse “Very funny! Another David Barringer book I could not put down. I laughed out loud!”—Kristina Moriconi

David Barringer is a writer, designer, photographer, artist, and teacher. He is the author of several novels, story collections, and books on graphic-design culture. He has written for Emigre, I.D. Magazine, Print, Eye, AIGA’s Voice, Details, the New York Times, The ABA Journal, Mademoiselle, Men’s Fitness, Men’s Health, the Detroit Monthly, the Detroit Free Press, and many others. His fiction has been nominated for several Pushcart Prizes and the StorySouth Million Writers Award. In 2005, he published his first novel Johnny Red (Word Riot Press) and a book of design criticism American Mutt Barks in the Yard (Emigre 68). He won the 2008 AIGA Winterhouse Award for design writing and, in 2009, published a collection of design essays entitled There’s Nothing Funny About Design (Princeton Architectural Press). He teaches at Winthrop University in Rock Hill, SC, and Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore, MD.