Sixteen Attempts to Justify My Existence

A boy puts Pepto-Bismol tablets in his socks during gym class with a hated teacher. Two college students wear yarmulkes so they can smoke marijuana in public without being arrested. A car thief thoughtfully returns his victim's overdue books to the Brooklyn Public Library. A teenage boy lists 69 reasons men should date his Aunt Aisha. A governor facing re-election is haunted by his dead mother and his habit of eating sand. In the oddball pieces, fictional or perhaps not, by Richard Grayson, a writer hailed by Publishers Weekly as "a versatile, interesting experimenter," SIXTEEN ATTEMPTS TO JUSTIFY MY EXISTENCE presents an infinite number of reasons to read the work of an author Library Journal called "a born storyteller and standup talker."