Melvin Jules Bukiet
A Faker's Dozen
Stories
The wicked exploits of an assortment of louts and losers occupy Melvin Jules Bukiet's profligate imagination in these delectable stories.
The title of Melvin Jules Bukiet's latest collection hints at the deceitful nature of its multiple protagonists. An aspiring writer stalks Vladmir Nabokov across midtown Manhattan one afternoon in the summer of Watergate. A young co-ed's seduction of her elderly philosophy professor delivers her an A and him lasting happiness. Max, "a liar and a voyeur, like any true artist," wanders the East Village taking photographs of murder victims. A famous Holocaust survivor "with the big eyes and the big prize" conducts an impromptu circumcision.
Ranging from 1895 Prague to the site of a Central American rebellion to the home of a certain Seattle software magnate to the roof of an urban skyscraper, each of these outrageous (though occasionally tender) stories offers keen insight into human nature.
"[Bukiet is] brilliant, black, and bitterly funny."—Washington Post
"Bukiet's blend of storytelling brio and audacious imagination calls to mind such disparate maximalists as Rushdie and Mark Helprin."—Salon
Melvin Jules Bukiet is the author of six previous books of fiction, and his stories have appeared in The Paris Review and Conjunctions. He lives in New York City.
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