The Book of Norman

The Book of Norman Paperback – July 26, 2024 by Wayne Cresser (Author) See all formats and editions “A comedic universe awaits in the stories of Wayne Cresser’s The Book of Norman, a landscape that revolves around his Everyman protagonist, Norman Winters, suffering the relatable slings and arrows prevalent in a world of prevaricators, weirdos, and bullies so you don’t have to. Cresser’s writing celebrates the quotidian and the absurd, leaving us rooting for Norman to the very end.” ---Fred Shaw, author of Scraping Away (CavanKerry Press) “With Wayne Cresser’s new collection of short stories, The Book of Norman, the reader experiences the principal character’s innermost angsts, and hears Norman Winters’ nuanced self-deprecating tone, that lives in Cresser’s extraordinarily expressive dialogue. Cresser builds his world effectively, setting his work in a small, charming island community. Despite bucolic surroundings, there remains an ever-present subtext of struggle for Norman, a lifelong composite of conflict that looms from the opening of this series of “Norman” stories and follows through to conclusion. This is clearly Cresser’s finest work. I loved each of these tightly written stories.” ---Jay Primiano, author with John Rocco of Swim That Rock (Candlewick Press) “Wayne Cresser’s The Book of Norman is a powerful excavation of our collective lives and the strange world we inhabit. With crystalline prose and an eye for the absurd and mundane, Cresser’s Norm is both an “everyman,” an American adrift within the morass of time and memory, and also singular, a creator who sees his peripatetic life as an ongoing construction of art. In “The Last Time Norm took Acid,” the eponymous narrator muses how he, at one time, “believed it possible to navigate the world in a decrepit car with no reverse,” and how he “wasn’t afraid to make mistakes. In fact, he knowingly made them and hoped he wouldn’t get caught.” The Book of Norman is Cresser at the height of his powers: dark, comical, warm; a stylist who brings Norm to life as equal parts navigator and wanderer.” ---Charles Kell, author of Ishmael Mask (Autumn House Press) __________________________________________________________________ As a kid, Norman Winters aspired to be good at something, baseball, canoe-racing, anything at all. As an adult he wants to teach eager minds and keep his house free of smoke and frauds. And in his old age, he just wants to burn the money and hold on to the clams. Does Mr. Winters