The citizens of Babbington think that Peter Leroy is a daring aviator, maybe even the nation’s most daring aviator — at... More > least in the teenage division — but the limelight and adulation are changing him, and not for the better. He's in danger of becoming an arrogant, insufferable little egoist.

Then something happens that saves him. He falls in love with Albertine Gaudet.

Almost at once, almost "at first sight," he realizes that Albertine would make a far better center for his life than he would himself. That is the end of egoism — and the start of one of literature's great romances.

Length: novella, about 20,000 words < Less

Peter Leroy constructs a plausible adult life for his grade school chum Matthew Barber, now living in Boston, where he is... More > vice-president of a toy company by day, but becomes Bertram W. Beath, restaurant reviewer, when the sun goes down.

Reservations Recommended is a satire of the critical mind; a dark commentary on contemporary culture; a story of midlife crisis; a morality play; and a book that matches bleakness against humor, seasoned throughout with B. W. Beath’s hilariously acid reviews. We watch as Matthew Barber descends from a self-protective superiority into a species of madness, and into the dark night of the soul. • “A brilliant satire.” LA Life • “Scary.” Kirkus Reviews • “Shrewd, adroit, and spirited.” Donna Seaman, Booklist • “A moving urban fable.” Roger Harris, Newark Star Ledger • “A merciless sendup of contemporary American pretensions.’ Janice Harayda, Cleveland Plain Dealer • “Wonderfully readable . . . touching and intelligent.” Richard Gehr, The Village Voice < Less

Peter Leroy receives his sexual initiation at the hands of the Glynn twins, becomes a sketch doctor, listens to many tales... More > about the night the Nevsky mansion burned, learns the value of hope, and discovers the love of his life. As is usual with Peter's recollections, we are never certain where memory ends and imagination begins—but we are certain that we are reading the work of a brilliant memoirist who reconstructs his past with wry humor, nostalgia, satire, and dazzling invention. • “A witty and wildly digressive epistemological examination in the form of a childhood reminiscence.” The New Yorker • “Wholly engaging . . . a daring tour de force.” Jonathan Baumbach, The New York Times Book Review • “One of the more hilariously erotic pieces of writing since Lolita.” Edward Hannibal, The East Hampton Star < Less

Small’s Hotel, on a little island off Long Island, is where Peter and his wife, Albertine, have spent most of their adult... More > lives. Albertine runs the hotel while Peter works quietly on his memoirs, but the future of the hotel, and of every gift Peter dreams of giving Albertine, is in jeopardy.

Business has fallen off and the old hotel is falling down. Bills are mounting. Foreclosure looms.

What Peter does to save the hotel, his marriage, and possibly his life involves storytelling, friendship, memory, ghostwriting, real-estate, electrical contraptions, and great, abiding love.
Adapted for television from the novel Leaving Small's Hotel. < Less

“The title of this sly and extremely funny book is also the title of a paper that [Peter Leroy] is assigned by his science... More > teacher, the luscious, leggy Miss Rheingold. We — and Peter — learn quite a bit about Miss Rheingold, although nowhere near as much as Peter would like. We also learn about epistemology; the boundaries of the self; the building of backyard lighthouses; terrazzo floors; Chinese Checkers; American education; the restricted vision of children (and their parents); and the design of such exquisitely intricate gadgets as the phonograph, the scanning tunneling microscope, the universe, and the novel. . . . Like childhood itself, Where Do You Stop? is filled with wonders. It is a book designed to leave its readers — and it deserves many of them — as happy as clams.” — Walter Satterthwaite. The New York Times Book Review • A New York Times Notable Book of the Year • Recommended by the Reader's Catalog • Length: novel, about 66,000 words < Less

Peter Leroy recalls an episode from his grade-school years, an episode that he would really rather forget, one of the dark,... More > gritty bits that one finds at the bottom of the chowder bowl of life. It involves the Young Tars, an organization originally intended to raise the morale of students at the new Babbington Central Upper Elementary School, and the treacherous Mr. Summers, a teacher whose armamentarium of instructional techniques featured "humility sessions" and a toy weapon that fired ping-pong balls.
Reviewing the original edition of the novellas that became Little Follies, Lee Pennock Huntington wrote, in the Vermont Sunday Magazine:

"[Peter's] parents, grandparents, neighbors, classmates, teachers, and friends are all marvelously alive, individual, eccentric. What happens to them has all the elements of surprise and inevitability that characterize the human condition, and some of it is so funny you can scarcely turn the pages for chortling."

Length: novella, about 20,000 words < Less

Peter Leroy recalls his childhood affection for the Larry Peters series of adventure books. As a boy, he entered the world... More > of the books so completely that he went from wanting to be Larry Peters to believing, sometimes, that he was. As Larry, he relished the company of his wisecracking sister Lucy and his square-jawed and capable pal, Rocky King. Later, when he had become a grownup, circumstances led to his taking his place as the last in a line of pseudonymous authors of the series, so that, in a way, he really did become Larry Peters. • "Kraft mocks the very notion of serial books by relating the convoluted plotline of the Larry Peters books, an adventure series for teenagers featuring Larry, his shapely sister, his best friend, and his family's bric-a-brac business." — Judith Rosen, Boston Sunday Herald • length: novella, about 20,000 words < Less

Peter Leroy recalls the trouble that ensued when a well-meaning teacher appointed him director of Babbington’s annual... More > fourth-grade production of King Lear. Three of his classmates wanted the role of Lear’s loving daughter, Cordelia, and each had her strategy for ensuring that she got it. Clarissa Bud, the girl with the white fur muff, used sweetness and charm; Veronica McCall used sex; and Lily O’Grady, known as Spike, threatened to break his foot if he chose anyone but her. • "Conveys a child's confusion and fear with a sure but never heavy hand." — Malcolm Jones, St. Petersburg Times • Length: novella, about 20,000 words < Less

Peter Leroy recalls his maternal grandfather’s attempt to build a shortwave radio, a project that begins with an article... More > in Impractical Craftsman magazine promising "hour after interminable hour of baffling precision work." After many, many hours spent watching his grandfather labor at his basement workbench, Peter at last gets to put the earphones on, flip the switch, and twiddle the dials. Through the crackling and sussurous static he detects the sounds of love and lust, joy and sorrow, hope and loss. • “Raucous, wise, and great fun, this is simply not to be missed.” — Booklist • LENGTH: novella, approximately 20,000 words. < Less

Peter Leroy returns in memory to the fifth grade, where he finds himself gazing at Veronica McCall across the Gulf of... More > Puberty. Remembering Veronica, the hottest little number in Babbington's elementary grades at that time, inevitably leads him to reflect on the many varieties of love and lust to which the human animal is subject; to consider the roots of the animosity between Babbington's clamdiggers and chicken-farmers; to recall the occasion of his first meeting Porky White, who was to become the brains behind the Kap'n Klam chain of bivalve-based fast-food restaurants; and forces him to recreate his attempt to skate on ice. • Reviewing "Take the Long Way Home" in Baltimore's City Paper on January 11, 1985, John Strausbaugh wrote: "Kraft has constructed a complete comic universe, an American Macondo. Kraft never provokes savage mockery or brutal sneers, but quiet, sweetly melancholy smiles of recognition." • Length: novella, about 20,000 words. < Less