What do you think?
Rate this book
The Paper Life They Lead: Stories
Honorable Mention on the Writer's Bone 2018 Year's Best Books List
A Pontiac Sunfire experiences Springsteen-esque glory days; women captivate with unusual beauty; a murderous sloth threatens a child. With plots that dive immediately into the absurd, Crerand captures the angst of existential crises, the search for meaning, and moments of depth and beauty through humor and attention to detail. This seven-story collection is funny, serious, and bizarre.
"Crerand is some rare kind of genius, offering unexpected shots of delight in stories that are miles high in imagination and distinctly and wonderfully weird. A Pontiac car goes to school and beyond, an airplane flight zooms into outer space, and in one especially daring, loopy story, a giant 7-toed sloth inhabits an abandoned zoo. I've never read anything quite like this collection--wild, wooly, and absolutely dazzling." Caroline Leavitt, author of Cruel Beautiful World and New York Times Best Sellers Pictures of You and Is This Tomorrow"
The Paper Life They Lead is the rare book that is as hilarious as it is terrifying, as heartfelt as it is intellectual, as realistic as it is experimental. Patrick Crerand is a writer of enormous talent and depth of heart. I love these stories; everyone who reads them will too." Wiley Cash, author of The Last Ballad
"These are some truly fine stories. What I love about Patrick Crerand is what I love about George Saunders: the persuasive absurdity, the human language (there is not a single imperfect word here) and the serious, serious laughter. I haven't had so much fun reading a book, and so much glorious heartbreak, in years." Daniel Wallace, author of Big Fish and Extraordinary Adventures
"The Paper Life They Lead is some kind of wild mixture of Etgar Keret and Ray Bradbury. You're never totally sure what to believe, but you always know you're in good hands. Patrick Crerand renders strange people in a world that is recognizable but not quite, and he does so with humor, intelligence, and a little bit of an edge. These stories are daring and jump off the page." Tom McAllister, author of How to Be Safe
"Crerand's choices become the real art here, his ability to make them work so convincingly. A story with a premise like [life on a Pepperidge Farm box] could be merely a joke in the wrong hands, but Crerand's commitment steers him clear of all of that, into much better territory, much more effective fiction." Michael Czyzniejewski, Story 366
"In The Paper Life They Lead, Patrick Crerand takes risks in his storytelling, and the result is an inventive collection. In this slim book of just over 50 pages, Crerand's mixture of flash fiction and slightly longer stories drops the reader into bizarre and unexpected places. Fantastical events occur even when the world looks much like the one we live in. The interesting and weird premises are stated upfront allowing the reader to focus on the characters-their relationships and how they react to the situations they are in." Emily Webber, SmokeLong Quarterly
A Pontiac Sunfire experiences Springsteen-esque glory days; women captivate with unusual beauty; a murderous sloth threatens a child. With plots that dive immediately into the absurd, Crerand captures the angst of existential crises, the search for meaning, and moments of depth and beauty through humor and attention to detail. This seven-story collection is funny, serious, and bizarre.
"Crerand is some rare kind of genius, offering unexpected shots of delight in stories that are miles high in imagination and distinctly and wonderfully weird. A Pontiac car goes to school and beyond, an airplane flight zooms into outer space, and in one especially daring, loopy story, a giant 7-toed sloth inhabits an abandoned zoo. I've never read anything quite like this collection--wild, wooly, and absolutely dazzling." Caroline Leavitt, author of Cruel Beautiful World and New York Times Best Sellers Pictures of You and Is This Tomorrow"
The Paper Life They Lead is the rare book that is as hilarious as it is terrifying, as heartfelt as it is intellectual, as realistic as it is experimental. Patrick Crerand is a writer of enormous talent and depth of heart. I love these stories; everyone who reads them will too." Wiley Cash, author of The Last Ballad
"These are some truly fine stories. What I love about Patrick Crerand is what I love about George Saunders: the persuasive absurdity, the human language (there is not a single imperfect word here) and the serious, serious laughter. I haven't had so much fun reading a book, and so much glorious heartbreak, in years." Daniel Wallace, author of Big Fish and Extraordinary Adventures
"The Paper Life They Lead is some kind of wild mixture of Etgar Keret and Ray Bradbury. You're never totally sure what to believe, but you always know you're in good hands. Patrick Crerand renders strange people in a world that is recognizable but not quite, and he does so with humor, intelligence, and a little bit of an edge. These stories are daring and jump off the page." Tom McAllister, author of How to Be Safe
"Crerand's choices become the real art here, his ability to make them work so convincingly. A story with a premise like [life on a Pepperidge Farm box] could be merely a joke in the wrong hands, but Crerand's commitment steers him clear of all of that, into much better territory, much more effective fiction." Michael Czyzniejewski, Story 366
"In The Paper Life They Lead, Patrick Crerand takes risks in his storytelling, and the result is an inventive collection. In this slim book of just over 50 pages, Crerand's mixture of flash fiction and slightly longer stories drops the reader into bizarre and unexpected places. Fantastical events occur even when the world looks much like the one we live in. The interesting and weird premises are stated upfront allowing the reader to focus on the characters-their relationships and how they react to the situations they are in." Emily Webber, SmokeLong Quarterly
- GenresShort StoriesFiction
70 pages, Paperback
Published July 26, 2019
About the author
Patrick Crerand
3 books15 followersPatrick Crerand’s stories have appeared in McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, Conjunctions, New Orleans Review, Ninth Letter, Indiana Review, Cimarron Review among others and have received special mention in The Best American Nonrequired Reading and Best American Fantasy anthologies. His nonfiction has appeared in the Tampa Bay Times, North American Review, New Ohio Review and other magazines. Currently, he is an Associate Professor of English Literature and Creative Writing at Saint Leo University in Florida, where he lives with his wife and three kids. He edits the on-line literary magazine, Lightning Key Review.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
January 19, 2019
Patrick Crerand has written a mesmerizing collection of stories that take the reader to vivid, strange, and sometimes disturbing places. My impulse is to describe the style of these tales as magical realism or fabulism, but the truth is they read in much the way one might view a Cubist painting, so the elements of reality are visible, but twisted into something unique. The book begins with an airplaine journey into the outer atmosphere ("PIT-DAY") and ends with flash piece that challenges the reader's notions of beauty while also taking a jab at lascivious gawkers ("The Ear"). That should tell you that you're in for quite a ride. In my favorite of these, "A Man of Vision," a crafty entrepreneur solicits donations for an exotic zoo. Maybe he's a huckster, maybe a genius. The story begins with all the trappings of a Monty Python skit but leads toward something akin to Heart of Darkness. I won't say that I loved every story included here. The title piece especially lost me somewhere along the way, and when you're walking through a labyrinth like that, you take a wrong turn and it's difficult to find your way back to the path. Even so, every piece here left me thinking, and that's one of the highest compliments I can give any book.
Of course, the book is quite short. On the plus side, it's easily readable in a couple sittings. On the minus, the reader is left wanting so much more.
A good book. Give it a shot.
Of course, the book is quite short. On the plus side, it's easily readable in a couple sittings. On the minus, the reader is left wanting so much more.
A good book. Give it a shot.
March 8, 2019
Patrick Crerand’s new short story collection, The Paper Life They Lead (Arc Pair Press), does not waste any time building a world, or gently inviting the reader into it. Instead, he throws the reader pell-mell into each of them. Patrick can begin a sentence with all the promise that it will keep the reader in the ordinary, only to gleefully abstain from any such notion by the end of that very sentence. Each of these compact stories takes the reader somewhere new both figuratively and literally, with a hefty helping of implausibility landing charmingly in the reader’s conscious.
PIT-DAY starts just this way, forcing the reader to accept Patrick’s worlds which always seem to land just adjacent to ours. When reading the first sentence of PIT-DAY, “Halfway into the hour flight from Pittsburgh to Dayton, the plane leveled off, and the captain made the announcement that they were all flying into outer space,” it is easy to see that this will not be a standard issue story collection. Elsewhere, in “The Glory of Keys” a Pontiac Sunfire takes the place of an everyman high school jock, only to discover that he is not as unique as he has been led to believe. Patrick dedicates “A Man of Vision” to Richard Connell. One can almost see the man in khaki as a descendant of Connell’s famous character, General Zaroff, in his cold and calculating appreciation of a murderous sloth. Patrick’s story turns the subject matter of its influence on its head, with a band of wealthy elite forced to reckon with a creature’s preternatural ability to kill, resulting in a child fatalistically furnished as a repast for the sloth.
Crerand weaves his absurd tales with noticeable threads of reality in the human condition. It is this tapestry design that allows the reader not only to accept Patrick’s Twilight Zone worlds but to draw something meaningful from them. In “The Ear,” first published in Masque and Spectacle, a professor shows off his masculine prowess to his gawking younger colleague. As the senior professor effectively picks up a beautiful woman while the junior professor searches achingly for something invisible to him, the reader is left with questions of power, the rat race of academia, and the feminine mystique.
Through all of the depth, the known, and unknown in these stories, one thing is clear: Crerand wants to transport readers. With each sudden plunge into the fantastic, one can almost feel Patrick smiling to himself somewhere, like Disney’s Merlin, as we experience his first display of magic.
PIT-DAY starts just this way, forcing the reader to accept Patrick’s worlds which always seem to land just adjacent to ours. When reading the first sentence of PIT-DAY, “Halfway into the hour flight from Pittsburgh to Dayton, the plane leveled off, and the captain made the announcement that they were all flying into outer space,” it is easy to see that this will not be a standard issue story collection. Elsewhere, in “The Glory of Keys” a Pontiac Sunfire takes the place of an everyman high school jock, only to discover that he is not as unique as he has been led to believe. Patrick dedicates “A Man of Vision” to Richard Connell. One can almost see the man in khaki as a descendant of Connell’s famous character, General Zaroff, in his cold and calculating appreciation of a murderous sloth. Patrick’s story turns the subject matter of its influence on its head, with a band of wealthy elite forced to reckon with a creature’s preternatural ability to kill, resulting in a child fatalistically furnished as a repast for the sloth.
Crerand weaves his absurd tales with noticeable threads of reality in the human condition. It is this tapestry design that allows the reader not only to accept Patrick’s Twilight Zone worlds but to draw something meaningful from them. In “The Ear,” first published in Masque and Spectacle, a professor shows off his masculine prowess to his gawking younger colleague. As the senior professor effectively picks up a beautiful woman while the junior professor searches achingly for something invisible to him, the reader is left with questions of power, the rat race of academia, and the feminine mystique.
Through all of the depth, the known, and unknown in these stories, one thing is clear: Crerand wants to transport readers. With each sudden plunge into the fantastic, one can almost feel Patrick smiling to himself somewhere, like Disney’s Merlin, as we experience his first display of magic.
June 16, 2020
After the first two stories--one in which a commercial pilot steers his airplane and its passengers up into space and another in which a muscle car attends high school as a student--I worried this collection was going to be too cute for its own good. I don't have a problem with absurdism, but I wasn't necessarily looking forward to a whole collection of it. Starting the titular third story set inside the farm on the box of Pepperidge Farm cookies, I expected more of the same and was pleasantly surprised at the dark turn the narrative took. It was a good enough story to make me reevaluate the previous two. What follows is still pretty absurd or bizarro or whatever, but in light of that Pepperidge Farm story it's clear there's something deeper and more sophisticated driving these short works. Interestingly, my favorite story in the collection "Semi Love" is the one almost free of absurdity (barring the presence of an obese pet bird) and feels instead like a brilliant Carver homage. Beyond being the best story here (with "The Paper Life They Lead" as a close second), it also makes the case for Crerand as an author capable of versatility. All in all, I enjoyed this collection a lot and would like to see more of what Crerand is capable of.
May 9, 2019
Patrick Crerand's quirky stories are the product of a wild imagination, a mind that isn't afraid to ask, what if? What if an old Pontiac went to college? What if the people on a box of Pepperidge Farm cookies were real? What if an airline captain decided to fly his passengers to the stars? But behind the unexpected premises, at their core, they show a deep compassion for the outcasts, the lost, the ones among us who don't fit in. There is something reminiscent of George Saunders in these stories, and the master should be proud of his disciple. Read these stories, and see us all vulnerable and limited, stumbling about, trying and failing, but always getting up, always reaching out. You'll find yourself unexpectedly moved by the most unlikely characters.
Full disclosure, Patrick is a friend, colleague, and writing mentor of mine. The last of these because he is also a compelling writer, both funny and moving.
Full disclosure, Patrick is a friend, colleague, and writing mentor of mine. The last of these because he is also a compelling writer, both funny and moving.
June 18, 2018
Anything can happen in the zany, off-kilter world Patrick Crerand creates in The Paper Life They Lead--cars go to college, planes head for the moon, ears grow in the middle of a beautiful woman's back. These short and entertaining stories prove that literary fiction doesn't have to be dark and brooding. My favorites were the title story (which takes place in Pepperidge Farm land), and the flash fiction that ends the collection, a riff on beauty titled "The Ear."
June 2, 2019
These stories are hilarious, poignant, and deeply-seeking all at the same time. Whether it's the teenaged "big fish, little pond" narrative seen through the eyes (headlights?) of a Pontiac Sunfire or the interior lives of the figures that appear on a Pepperidge Farm box, Patrick Crerand manages to take ordinary objects beyond absurdity and back around to the everyday. Even if the contexts and characters seem fantastical, the experiences and emotions in these stories are, in the end, quite familiar for readers. What a wonderful way to take us beyond our lives (but then, in an odd twist, have us also reflect on them).
April 17, 2018
I think author Wiley Cash undersold Patrick’s Crerand’s short story collection The Paper Life They Lead (Out April 17 from Arc Pair Press) when he emailed me saying that it was “fucking brilliant." If you’re looking for a collection to bebop in your head for a good long while, this is it.
March 5, 2020
Loved these stories> so much to think about regarding the human condition
February 7, 2019
This book will be unlike anything you have read. Crerand takes risks in his storytelling and the result is a unique, inventive book - both serious and quirky. There's much to love here and you can read my full review here: http://www.smokelong.com/a-review-of-....
October 27, 2019
I've been a fan of Patrick Crerand's writing for quite some time, and I'm thrilled to see this collection come into the world. This book is charming and quirky and laugh-out-loud funny.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews