Penguin Random House Higher Education
Elementary Secondary Higher Ed

Higher Education


Catalogs

News

Desk/Exam

Wish List
  • Higher Education

    • Business & Economics
        • Business & Economics
        • Accounting
        • Business
        • Economics
        • Finance
        • Management
        • Management Information Services
        • Marketing

        • Browse All Disciplines & Courses in Business & Economics
    • Humanities & Social Sciences
        • Humanities & Social Sciences
        • Anthropology
        • Art
        • Communication
        • Education
        • English
        • Film Studies
        • History
        • Interdisciplinary Studies
        • Music
        •  
        • Performing Arts
        • Philosophy
        • Political Science
        • Psychology
        • Religion
        • Social Work
        • Sociology
        • Student Success and Career Development
        • World Languages

        • Browse All Disciplines & Courses in Humanities & Social Sciences
    • Professional Studies
        • Professional Studies
        • Architecture
        • Criminal Justice
        • Culinary, Hospitality, Travel , and Tourism
        • Healthcare Professions
        • Legal and Paralegal Studies
        • Military Science

        • Browse All Disciplines & Courses in Professional Studies
    • Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics
        • Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics
        • Biology
        • Chemistry
        • Computer Science
        • Computers & Information Systems
        • Engineering
        • Environmental Science
        •  
        • Geography
        • Geology
        • Health and Kinesiology
        • Mathematics
        • Nutrition
        • Physics and Astronomy

        • Browse All Disciplines & Courses in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics
    • Catalogs
    • News
    • Desk/Exam
    • Other Penguin Random House Education Sites
    • Elementary Education
    • Secondary Education
Download high-resolution cover Look inside

The Lost Father

Part of Vintage Contemporaries

Written by Mona Simpson
Look inside
Paperback
$15.95 US
Knopf | Vintage
On sale Jan 11, 1993 | 524 Pages | 978-0-679-73303-4
Add to cart Add to list Exam Copies
See Additional Formats
  • Interdisciplinary Studies > Women's and Gender Studies > Women and Literature
  • About
  • Excerpt
  • Author
In her highly acclaimed first novel, Anywhere But Here, Simpson created one of the most astute yet vulnerable heroines in contemporary fiction. Now Mayan Atassi--once Mayan Stevenson--returns in an immensely powerful novel about love and lovelessness, fathers and fatherlessness, and the loyalties that shape us even when they threaten to destroy us.

Now a woman of twenty-eight and finally on her own in medical school, Mayan becomes obsessed with the father she never knew, leading her to hire detectives to dredge up the past, thus eroding her savings, ruining her career, and flirting with madness in a search spanning two continents.

"Ratifies the achievement of Anywhere But Here, attesting to its author's...dazzling literary gift and uncommon emotional wisdom."
--New York Times

"A breathtaking piece of fiction; Simpson is a writer who can break our heart and mend it in the same sentence."
--Cleveland Plain Dealer
1

I lived in a small, low-ceilinged apartment beneath an old man. He was cane walking, stooped and Chinese. In the elevator he stood just to my eyebrows. He seemed to be completely alone. I weighed those factors at midnight, again, as I sat by the spray of lamplight over my textbook, while the vague, indoor noises of his television fell down through my ceiling. Outside my one window, another brick building rose, like a piece of dark paper.

I was twenty-seven and in medical school. The only reason I was in the East was to read these pages. I scratched out a note to the man above. "Dear Sir, Could you please turn down your television?" I balled it up. I had no garbage can. That was another thing. To Do.

And so I went to bed. I loved sleep. I was new in New York City, new in medical school, sleep was my voluptuous sanctuary. I slept in linen closets, on cots, floors, in waiting rooms on foam-covered chairs. I slept, and could sleep, anywhere. Under a sheet, my limbs would move in the thick pleasure of being unseen. I could sleep most times, especially if I had something warm. I dressed in layers of cotton and would leave some piece, a sweatshirt or a T-shirt, on top of a radiator. Then I took the warm thing and hugged it in my arms by my face and before the heat drained out of it I was fast asleep. I did that in boys' apartments to help assuage the strangeness. I always woke up first, in the morning. I hated mornings there. They seemed so ordinary and industrial, machinery of the material world gearing up in hitches noisy outside. This life was approximate, I knew, standing at the window, whether or not there were any others.

I wanted to be a country doctor. I knew what I wanted my office to look like. It would be a room at the end of an orchard, with wooden bureaus and shelves, magnifying glasses, bird skeletons, nests, butterflies behind glass, a live parrot in a cage, an examining table with a clean roll of white paper. I would treat whole families, the migrant cherry pickers, Gypsies who came to the Wisconsin peninsula every year, and I would keep their histories in an even penmanship in lined notebooks. There would be a small laboratory at the back. I was specializing in internal medicine, but I did not want to get too far away from home. Most people in the world suffered common, eternal diseases.

I'd picked New York because I had a vision of myself wearing white bucks and a pink cable-knit sweater, holding the silver subway pole.

I lived there, but I never had a strong sense of place. I was always standing at a window, looking at the buildings and a small portion of the sky. Even when I walked in the park by the river, the trees never seemed beholden to that place. They were trees that could have been anywhere, just trees. I'd come to get my training. I wanted to use the place, not the other way around, and I approached with a kind of wariness.

My first day of college chemistry, a Nobel Prize winner who'd discovered an element, now colored on the periodic table, said into the microphone, "Look to your left and look to your right. Because two of you won't get in." He didn't even have to say get in what. We knew. That was Brown. The tall, off-handed man wasn't even a doctor. He was a scientist. The distinction hardly mattered to me then. I found my pencil in my mouth. Two others waited, sharpened, in a clear case. I had a good seat, because I'd come twenty minutes early, but for those in back, video monitors on the ceilings played the lecture. And that was the last joke he told all semester, if you can call it a joke.

One out of three wasn't bad odds. Four kids from West Racine's two-hundred-and-eighty-nine-person class went to college. Any college. And they were teachers' children. I came from a high school in California where all the mothers cared about was colleges and straight teeth. Pencils grated around me. Brown seemed full of valedictorians.

But that time I didn't last in the East. I transferred, the next year, to Wisconsin, after my grandmother's third stroke. Then, only once, she came to visit me in my dormitory room in Madison. I'd encouraged the trip. I thought she would be proud of me, on campus, and that she would enjoy the idea of a scholarly life. And she would have, but she was just too old. I saw when she stepped off the bus. She held the metal bar with two hands and her feet went off parallel, stiff coming down. She pointed to a green tin box on the curb. When my mother had tried college, she'd sent her sorority clothes home to be laundered every other week and my grandmother had sent them back in this same box, all washed and pressed. Now she wanted to do the same for me. We walked a little through campus and she nodded solemnly with a downward frown. She gripped my arm too hard and I felt glad and relieved to get her into the dormitory. I had a good room and my roommate was gone for the weekend. At the hall kitchenette, I made my grandmother the Sanka that she liked. I'd bought powdered Cremora so it would be just like at home. When I walked back balancing the cup, I found she'd lowered herself to her knees. She had her hands on the top of the bed for balance. My mattress lay on an eighteen-inch platform that somebody's boyfriend had built.

"You know what I'd do," my grandmother whispered, the skin around her mouth gathering, "I'd get a saw and two such hinges" she spanned her thumb and first finger to show me the size-"and build a door in here." Her hand traced on the wood of the platform. "Then, if you hear anything trying to get in, you just crawl under and shut the door. They'll never even know you're here."

She worried about the window. My roommate, Emily, and I lived in two rooms. The front one had a nice window with a tree outside. Other windows in the building had security bars but I didn't want them because of the tree. I'd pushed my desk there and I scattered birdseed on the wood to lure birds: bluejays, robins and once a cardinal, skitting the meal over my papers as I worked.

I borrowed a car and drove my grandmother home. By the time we turned onto the old small roads outside Racine, she began to forget me. She could still take care of herself, alone in the house, but that was all. She was glad enough to let me go. At home, I undressed her and she went right to sleep, on her back, her nose the highest place on her.

Living in New York, in the apartment with one window and the man who watched TV upstairs, I had no tree. I turned the light on first thing in the morning. But the brick wall outside, the hot plate on the floor in the closet, even the ticking pattern of cockroaches, made me know what I was there for. I felt a weakness in my neck. The book lay open to page 485. I stayed up later than I could, marking with yellow highlights, slowly and more slowly turning the pages. Getting in turned out to be the least of it.

I had nine thousand dollars in the bank. My inheritance. The money represented a third of the proceeds from a gasoline station my grandmother had owned. For twenty-four years after her husband died, my grandmother had dutifully driven out to the Mohawk Gasoline Station every month to collect the rent. I had often gone along and waited in the car. When we drove up slowly, the car coasting into a slot by the high red and white pumps, the manager would run out, fill up our tank and hand my grandmother an envelope. Sometimes he had a bottle of chocolate milk for me and a straw. She always paid him for the gasoline and she tried to pay him for the milk, too. My cousins and I often collected gifts we didn't deserve because we were the owner's children.

I kept the money in the Racine National Savings. and Loan Bank. I owned a small cardboard accordion file, where I slotted the dark green passbook under S, for security. I kept all my valuables in that file, my grandfather's watch and my mother's costume jewelry from her college years. I hadn't touched the money yet and I felt some satisfaction, knowing I had more than the numbers printed in blue, because there would be interest. Sometimes, I took the book out and just held it.

I'd managed major expenditures without touching that. It had been a question, when I moved, whether to come lightly and buy a futon in New York or to truck the family furniture, my desk and the old gray couch from the living room, the bed and green-and-white-striped bedspreads. If I didn't keep the stuff, nobody else would. I saved the money from my job after college at the Wildlife Sanctuary. The salary had been small but I had no expenses. After my grandmother's fourth stroke, my senior year, I'd moved back into the house on Guns Road.

It seemed an odd thing to do, moving half a houseful of furniture across the country, worrying over trucks, examining the arrived familiar things for nicks and scratches. That is the middle class: paying thousands of dollars trucking pieces of junk from one state to another. These were not antiques or anything. But I was from the West. I hadn't planned on my New York apartment being so small. I was embarrassed and I didn't want people to know I'd moved all these chairs here. There was something not young about me when I was young. I lived in an overfull room, hitting my hipbones on table corners.

Once when I was asleep, I heard a thump against my door just before it was light. The sky was streaked with gray and blue and a strange pale cream. I hadn't locked the door. I just forgot. That was another thing I couldn't get in the habit of doing right. I never locked doors. I reached down the side of my platform, touched the rough wood I'd shipped from Wisconsin. I thought of the hinged door. There was no hinged door. It was my own fault and now I waited on my back in bed. My mother had always been terrified and locked everything six times, even car doors. I hated that. I wanted to feel careless. I tried to be.

Later, the upstairs neighbor's water rushing thoroughly in the walls, I turned on the light and opened the door. A new phone book, the yellow pages, slumped against the wood. This seemed hilariously funny. Once before, in Madison, I'd been in bed and I heard something alive land through the window. It turned out to be a twelve-pound cat. So far in my life, for me, nothing that followed was as bad as that first gasp.

It was just morning. Nothing had happened. The old man upstairs had on his TV already and I forgave him. I even liked it. I made a strong cup of coffee and began flipping through the yellow pages. I turned to the D's. Detective Svce wedged between Dentists and Diamonds. "See Investigators-Private," the book said. I almost didn't, but I did. All the boxed entries advertised MISSING PERSONS. After MATRIMONIAL, they seemed to be the main attraction. Some firms bragged about the numbers of unmarked cars, others claimed international service. A lot of them seemed to be run by ex-police lieutenants and ex-district attorneys. One ad said UNUSUAL CASES! DIFFICULT PROBLEMS and I turned the corner of the page back, thinking that was me, until I realized, with a funny feeling, that missing persons did not seem to be unusual.

Right then I started calling agencies. I didn't really mean to. It was an odd thing to do when I was always behind with work and sleep stole my time. A luxury meant caramel flan and caf? con leche at the greenlit Cuban-Chinese diner on Amsterdam. That morning, spatters of unremitting rain ticked on the window. There is glamorous and dull rain. This was dull rain.

The first detective put me on hold. He transferred me to Missing Persons. When I told Missing Persons what I knew, a sure-sounding guy said he'd be wasting my time. "You just don't have enough. It's a big country," he said.

The next one was a young woman. "Wait a minute, wait a minute," she said while I told my story. I didn't like talking about him. It reminded me of being a girl, standing still while the interrogation slanted down on me. Have you heard anything from your dad? Do you miss him? I felt sullen. But of course, I'd called her. Still, I said as little as possible. I answered her questions with yeses and nos. Mostly nos.

"Twenty-five hundred," she said. "That's ballpark, you understand."

The next place I called transferred me three times before anyone would listen. But then, the man seemed kind. He said hmmm, thoughtfully and somehow impersonal in a way I liked, as if this weren't my life we were talking about, but something general. "Why don't we schedule a meeting just so I can hear all the facts."

I had to ask him first, how much that would cost.

"Oh, nothing yet," he said.

He actually came to my apartment. I suppose his seeing where I lived helped me with the price. Hard as it might have been for other people to believe, I felt sort of proud of my apartment. It was the first place I'd had on my own. Sometimes I missed that: the refrigerator door yawning open in the other room, Emily clomping in, a cat draping silkily around my legs. Here, no matter how poor I was, I had furniture. I felt proud and ashamed of that, depending on how the other person seemed.

I don't even remember the detective's name. This bothers me, but when I think about him, even hard, I know I don't know it. I'm pretty sure I never even received a report from him, anything in writing. It's all vague to me, the way a casual affair might be. That's what I did instead of casual affairs my first year in the East.

I offered the detective tea and he accepted, then seemed to regret it as I clanged about my closet kitchen, bumping my hot plate on the floor, extracting two cups from their unlikely situation in the half-size refrigerator. "No storage," I apologized. The apartment building had once been a hotel and the kitchen, a linen closet. Racine's old downtown had this kind of brick building. Downtown and this kind of place meant squalor there, old single men with strange-smelling habits. The detective sat in my grandmother's coil rocker. When I gave him his tea, there was nowhere for him to put it, so he held it in his open palm on his thigh. With his other hand, he took notes on what I told him about my father. He didn't ask much. We settled on a price of fifteen hundred. Seven hundred and fifty then, the subsequent seven hundred fifty upon location. C.O.D., so to speak. I wrote out the check. I hadn't budgeted the money and I didn't want to take it out of the bank. I didn't want to use my grandmother's gas station money to do this. I just wanted to do it. Sort of on the side.
Copyright © 1993 by Mona Simpson. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Mona Simpson is the author of Casebook, Anywhere But Here, The Lost Father, A Regular Guy, Off Keck Road, and My Hollywood. Off Keck Road won the Heartland Prize from the Chicago Tribune and was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award. She has received a Whiting Writers’ Award, a Guggenheim grant, a Lila Wallace–Reader's Digest Writers’ Award, and, recently, a Literature Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Simpson is on the faculty at UCLA and also teaches at Bard College.
Photo © Gaspar Tringale
Learn more about Mona Simpson

About

In her highly acclaimed first novel, Anywhere But Here, Simpson created one of the most astute yet vulnerable heroines in contemporary fiction. Now Mayan Atassi--once Mayan Stevenson--returns in an immensely powerful novel about love and lovelessness, fathers and fatherlessness, and the loyalties that shape us even when they threaten to destroy us.

Now a woman of twenty-eight and finally on her own in medical school, Mayan becomes obsessed with the father she never knew, leading her to hire detectives to dredge up the past, thus eroding her savings, ruining her career, and flirting with madness in a search spanning two continents.

"Ratifies the achievement of Anywhere But Here, attesting to its author's...dazzling literary gift and uncommon emotional wisdom."
--New York Times

"A breathtaking piece of fiction; Simpson is a writer who can break our heart and mend it in the same sentence."
--Cleveland Plain Dealer

Excerpt

1

I lived in a small, low-ceilinged apartment beneath an old man. He was cane walking, stooped and Chinese. In the elevator he stood just to my eyebrows. He seemed to be completely alone. I weighed those factors at midnight, again, as I sat by the spray of lamplight over my textbook, while the vague, indoor noises of his television fell down through my ceiling. Outside my one window, another brick building rose, like a piece of dark paper.

I was twenty-seven and in medical school. The only reason I was in the East was to read these pages. I scratched out a note to the man above. "Dear Sir, Could you please turn down your television?" I balled it up. I had no garbage can. That was another thing. To Do.

And so I went to bed. I loved sleep. I was new in New York City, new in medical school, sleep was my voluptuous sanctuary. I slept in linen closets, on cots, floors, in waiting rooms on foam-covered chairs. I slept, and could sleep, anywhere. Under a sheet, my limbs would move in the thick pleasure of being unseen. I could sleep most times, especially if I had something warm. I dressed in layers of cotton and would leave some piece, a sweatshirt or a T-shirt, on top of a radiator. Then I took the warm thing and hugged it in my arms by my face and before the heat drained out of it I was fast asleep. I did that in boys' apartments to help assuage the strangeness. I always woke up first, in the morning. I hated mornings there. They seemed so ordinary and industrial, machinery of the material world gearing up in hitches noisy outside. This life was approximate, I knew, standing at the window, whether or not there were any others.

I wanted to be a country doctor. I knew what I wanted my office to look like. It would be a room at the end of an orchard, with wooden bureaus and shelves, magnifying glasses, bird skeletons, nests, butterflies behind glass, a live parrot in a cage, an examining table with a clean roll of white paper. I would treat whole families, the migrant cherry pickers, Gypsies who came to the Wisconsin peninsula every year, and I would keep their histories in an even penmanship in lined notebooks. There would be a small laboratory at the back. I was specializing in internal medicine, but I did not want to get too far away from home. Most people in the world suffered common, eternal diseases.

I'd picked New York because I had a vision of myself wearing white bucks and a pink cable-knit sweater, holding the silver subway pole.

I lived there, but I never had a strong sense of place. I was always standing at a window, looking at the buildings and a small portion of the sky. Even when I walked in the park by the river, the trees never seemed beholden to that place. They were trees that could have been anywhere, just trees. I'd come to get my training. I wanted to use the place, not the other way around, and I approached with a kind of wariness.

My first day of college chemistry, a Nobel Prize winner who'd discovered an element, now colored on the periodic table, said into the microphone, "Look to your left and look to your right. Because two of you won't get in." He didn't even have to say get in what. We knew. That was Brown. The tall, off-handed man wasn't even a doctor. He was a scientist. The distinction hardly mattered to me then. I found my pencil in my mouth. Two others waited, sharpened, in a clear case. I had a good seat, because I'd come twenty minutes early, but for those in back, video monitors on the ceilings played the lecture. And that was the last joke he told all semester, if you can call it a joke.

One out of three wasn't bad odds. Four kids from West Racine's two-hundred-and-eighty-nine-person class went to college. Any college. And they were teachers' children. I came from a high school in California where all the mothers cared about was colleges and straight teeth. Pencils grated around me. Brown seemed full of valedictorians.

But that time I didn't last in the East. I transferred, the next year, to Wisconsin, after my grandmother's third stroke. Then, only once, she came to visit me in my dormitory room in Madison. I'd encouraged the trip. I thought she would be proud of me, on campus, and that she would enjoy the idea of a scholarly life. And she would have, but she was just too old. I saw when she stepped off the bus. She held the metal bar with two hands and her feet went off parallel, stiff coming down. She pointed to a green tin box on the curb. When my mother had tried college, she'd sent her sorority clothes home to be laundered every other week and my grandmother had sent them back in this same box, all washed and pressed. Now she wanted to do the same for me. We walked a little through campus and she nodded solemnly with a downward frown. She gripped my arm too hard and I felt glad and relieved to get her into the dormitory. I had a good room and my roommate was gone for the weekend. At the hall kitchenette, I made my grandmother the Sanka that she liked. I'd bought powdered Cremora so it would be just like at home. When I walked back balancing the cup, I found she'd lowered herself to her knees. She had her hands on the top of the bed for balance. My mattress lay on an eighteen-inch platform that somebody's boyfriend had built.

"You know what I'd do," my grandmother whispered, the skin around her mouth gathering, "I'd get a saw and two such hinges" she spanned her thumb and first finger to show me the size-"and build a door in here." Her hand traced on the wood of the platform. "Then, if you hear anything trying to get in, you just crawl under and shut the door. They'll never even know you're here."

She worried about the window. My roommate, Emily, and I lived in two rooms. The front one had a nice window with a tree outside. Other windows in the building had security bars but I didn't want them because of the tree. I'd pushed my desk there and I scattered birdseed on the wood to lure birds: bluejays, robins and once a cardinal, skitting the meal over my papers as I worked.

I borrowed a car and drove my grandmother home. By the time we turned onto the old small roads outside Racine, she began to forget me. She could still take care of herself, alone in the house, but that was all. She was glad enough to let me go. At home, I undressed her and she went right to sleep, on her back, her nose the highest place on her.

Living in New York, in the apartment with one window and the man who watched TV upstairs, I had no tree. I turned the light on first thing in the morning. But the brick wall outside, the hot plate on the floor in the closet, even the ticking pattern of cockroaches, made me know what I was there for. I felt a weakness in my neck. The book lay open to page 485. I stayed up later than I could, marking with yellow highlights, slowly and more slowly turning the pages. Getting in turned out to be the least of it.

I had nine thousand dollars in the bank. My inheritance. The money represented a third of the proceeds from a gasoline station my grandmother had owned. For twenty-four years after her husband died, my grandmother had dutifully driven out to the Mohawk Gasoline Station every month to collect the rent. I had often gone along and waited in the car. When we drove up slowly, the car coasting into a slot by the high red and white pumps, the manager would run out, fill up our tank and hand my grandmother an envelope. Sometimes he had a bottle of chocolate milk for me and a straw. She always paid him for the gasoline and she tried to pay him for the milk, too. My cousins and I often collected gifts we didn't deserve because we were the owner's children.

I kept the money in the Racine National Savings. and Loan Bank. I owned a small cardboard accordion file, where I slotted the dark green passbook under S, for security. I kept all my valuables in that file, my grandfather's watch and my mother's costume jewelry from her college years. I hadn't touched the money yet and I felt some satisfaction, knowing I had more than the numbers printed in blue, because there would be interest. Sometimes, I took the book out and just held it.

I'd managed major expenditures without touching that. It had been a question, when I moved, whether to come lightly and buy a futon in New York or to truck the family furniture, my desk and the old gray couch from the living room, the bed and green-and-white-striped bedspreads. If I didn't keep the stuff, nobody else would. I saved the money from my job after college at the Wildlife Sanctuary. The salary had been small but I had no expenses. After my grandmother's fourth stroke, my senior year, I'd moved back into the house on Guns Road.

It seemed an odd thing to do, moving half a houseful of furniture across the country, worrying over trucks, examining the arrived familiar things for nicks and scratches. That is the middle class: paying thousands of dollars trucking pieces of junk from one state to another. These were not antiques or anything. But I was from the West. I hadn't planned on my New York apartment being so small. I was embarrassed and I didn't want people to know I'd moved all these chairs here. There was something not young about me when I was young. I lived in an overfull room, hitting my hipbones on table corners.

Once when I was asleep, I heard a thump against my door just before it was light. The sky was streaked with gray and blue and a strange pale cream. I hadn't locked the door. I just forgot. That was another thing I couldn't get in the habit of doing right. I never locked doors. I reached down the side of my platform, touched the rough wood I'd shipped from Wisconsin. I thought of the hinged door. There was no hinged door. It was my own fault and now I waited on my back in bed. My mother had always been terrified and locked everything six times, even car doors. I hated that. I wanted to feel careless. I tried to be.

Later, the upstairs neighbor's water rushing thoroughly in the walls, I turned on the light and opened the door. A new phone book, the yellow pages, slumped against the wood. This seemed hilariously funny. Once before, in Madison, I'd been in bed and I heard something alive land through the window. It turned out to be a twelve-pound cat. So far in my life, for me, nothing that followed was as bad as that first gasp.

It was just morning. Nothing had happened. The old man upstairs had on his TV already and I forgave him. I even liked it. I made a strong cup of coffee and began flipping through the yellow pages. I turned to the D's. Detective Svce wedged between Dentists and Diamonds. "See Investigators-Private," the book said. I almost didn't, but I did. All the boxed entries advertised MISSING PERSONS. After MATRIMONIAL, they seemed to be the main attraction. Some firms bragged about the numbers of unmarked cars, others claimed international service. A lot of them seemed to be run by ex-police lieutenants and ex-district attorneys. One ad said UNUSUAL CASES! DIFFICULT PROBLEMS and I turned the corner of the page back, thinking that was me, until I realized, with a funny feeling, that missing persons did not seem to be unusual.

Right then I started calling agencies. I didn't really mean to. It was an odd thing to do when I was always behind with work and sleep stole my time. A luxury meant caramel flan and caf? con leche at the greenlit Cuban-Chinese diner on Amsterdam. That morning, spatters of unremitting rain ticked on the window. There is glamorous and dull rain. This was dull rain.

The first detective put me on hold. He transferred me to Missing Persons. When I told Missing Persons what I knew, a sure-sounding guy said he'd be wasting my time. "You just don't have enough. It's a big country," he said.

The next one was a young woman. "Wait a minute, wait a minute," she said while I told my story. I didn't like talking about him. It reminded me of being a girl, standing still while the interrogation slanted down on me. Have you heard anything from your dad? Do you miss him? I felt sullen. But of course, I'd called her. Still, I said as little as possible. I answered her questions with yeses and nos. Mostly nos.

"Twenty-five hundred," she said. "That's ballpark, you understand."

The next place I called transferred me three times before anyone would listen. But then, the man seemed kind. He said hmmm, thoughtfully and somehow impersonal in a way I liked, as if this weren't my life we were talking about, but something general. "Why don't we schedule a meeting just so I can hear all the facts."

I had to ask him first, how much that would cost.

"Oh, nothing yet," he said.

He actually came to my apartment. I suppose his seeing where I lived helped me with the price. Hard as it might have been for other people to believe, I felt sort of proud of my apartment. It was the first place I'd had on my own. Sometimes I missed that: the refrigerator door yawning open in the other room, Emily clomping in, a cat draping silkily around my legs. Here, no matter how poor I was, I had furniture. I felt proud and ashamed of that, depending on how the other person seemed.

I don't even remember the detective's name. This bothers me, but when I think about him, even hard, I know I don't know it. I'm pretty sure I never even received a report from him, anything in writing. It's all vague to me, the way a casual affair might be. That's what I did instead of casual affairs my first year in the East.

I offered the detective tea and he accepted, then seemed to regret it as I clanged about my closet kitchen, bumping my hot plate on the floor, extracting two cups from their unlikely situation in the half-size refrigerator. "No storage," I apologized. The apartment building had once been a hotel and the kitchen, a linen closet. Racine's old downtown had this kind of brick building. Downtown and this kind of place meant squalor there, old single men with strange-smelling habits. The detective sat in my grandmother's coil rocker. When I gave him his tea, there was nowhere for him to put it, so he held it in his open palm on his thigh. With his other hand, he took notes on what I told him about my father. He didn't ask much. We settled on a price of fifteen hundred. Seven hundred and fifty then, the subsequent seven hundred fifty upon location. C.O.D., so to speak. I wrote out the check. I hadn't budgeted the money and I didn't want to take it out of the bank. I didn't want to use my grandmother's gas station money to do this. I just wanted to do it. Sort of on the side.
Copyright © 1993 by Mona Simpson. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

Author

Mona Simpson is the author of Casebook, Anywhere But Here, The Lost Father, A Regular Guy, Off Keck Road, and My Hollywood. Off Keck Road won the Heartland Prize from the Chicago Tribune and was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award. She has received a Whiting Writers’ Award, a Guggenheim grant, a Lila Wallace–Reader's Digest Writers’ Award, and, recently, a Literature Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Simpson is on the faculty at UCLA and also teaches at Bard College.
Photo © Gaspar Tringale
Learn more about Mona Simpson

Additional formats

  • The Lost Father
    The Lost Father
    Mona Simpson
    978-0-307-76538-3
    $12.99 US
    Ebook
    Vintage
    Aug 10, 2011
  • The Lost Father
    The Lost Father
    Mona Simpson
    978-0-307-76538-3
    $12.99 US
    Ebook
    Vintage
    Aug 10, 2011

Other books in this series

  • Leave Society
    Leave Society
    Tao Lin
    978-1-101-97447-6
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Aug 03, 2021
  • The Knockout Queen
    The Knockout Queen
    A novel
    Rufi Thorpe
    978-0-525-56729-5
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Mar 02, 2021
  • We Ride Upon Sticks
    We Ride Upon Sticks
    A Novel
    Quan Barry
    978-0-525-56543-7
    $16.95 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Feb 16, 2021
  • Weather
    Weather
    Jenny Offill
    978-0-345-80690-1
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Jan 19, 2021
  • The Resisters
    The Resisters
    A novel
    Gish Jen
    978-0-525-65722-4
    $16.95 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Jan 12, 2021
  • The Red Lotus
    The Red Lotus
    A Novel
    Chris Bohjalian
    978-0-525-56596-3
    $16.95 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Jan 05, 2021
  • The Queen's Gambit (Television Tie-in)
    The Queen's Gambit (Television Tie-in)
    Walter Tevis
    978-0-593-31465-4
    $16.95 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Dec 15, 2020
  • Interior Chinatown
    Interior Chinatown
    A Novel
    Charles Yu
    978-0-307-94847-2
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Nov 17, 2020
  • Sleep Donation
    Sleep Donation
    Karen Russell
    978-0-525-56608-3
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Sep 29, 2020
  • I Give It to You
    I Give It to You
    A Novel
    Valerie Martin
    978-0-385-54639-3
    $27.95 US
    Hardcover
    Nan A. Talese
    Aug 11, 2020
  • Middle England
    Middle England
    A novel
    Jonathan Coe
    978-0-525-56684-7
    $17.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Jul 14, 2020
  • Everything Inside
    Everything Inside
    Stories
    Edwidge Danticat
    978-0-525-56305-1
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Jul 07, 2020
  • The Flight Portfolio
    The Flight Portfolio
    A novel
    Julie Orringer
    978-0-307-94971-4
    $16.95 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Jun 30, 2020
  • Water Witches
    Water Witches
    Chris Bohjalian
    978-0-593-08178-5
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Jun 30, 2020
  • Very Nice
    Very Nice
    A novel
    Marcy Dermansky
    978-0-525-56522-2
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Jun 09, 2020
  • Dual Citizens
    Dual Citizens
    A novel
    Alix Ohlin
    978-0-525-56355-6
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    May 19, 2020
  • The Body in Question
    The Body in Question
    A Novel
    Jill Ciment
    978-0-525-56537-6
    $15.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    May 19, 2020
  • Orange World and Other Stories
    Orange World and Other Stories
    Karen Russell
    978-0-525-56607-6
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    May 05, 2020
  • Lost and Wanted
    Lost and Wanted
    A novel
    Nell Freudenberger
    978-0-8041-7096-3
    $16.95 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Mar 31, 2020
  • The River
    The River
    A novel
    Peter Heller
    978-0-525-56353-2
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Mar 03, 2020
  • Goulash
    Goulash
    A Novel
    Brian Kimberling
    978-0-345-80337-5
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Jan 21, 2020
  • The Stories of Alice Adams
    The Stories of Alice Adams
    Alice Adams
    978-1-9848-9811-1
    $18.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Nov 19, 2019
  • Old Newgate Road
    Old Newgate Road
    A novel
    Keith Scribner
    978-0-525-56346-4
    $17.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Oct 08, 2019
  • Notes from the Fog
    Notes from the Fog
    Ben Marcus
    978-1-101-97168-0
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Jul 09, 2019
  • Red, White, Blue
    Red, White, Blue
    A novel
    Lea Carpenter
    978-0-525-43298-2
    $16.95 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Jun 04, 2019
  • Good Trouble
    Good Trouble
    Stories
    Joseph O'Neill
    978-0-525-43664-5
    $15.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    May 14, 2019
  • Sociable
    Sociable
    Rebecca Harrington
    978-0-8041-7217-2
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Feb 05, 2019
  • The Flight Attendant
    The Flight Attendant
    A Novel
    Chris Bohjalian
    978-0-525-43268-5
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Jan 08, 2019
  • Cockfosters
    Cockfosters
    Stories
    Helen Simpson
    978-0-525-56362-4
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Sep 04, 2018
  • Gork, the Teenage Dragon
    Gork, the Teenage Dragon
    A Novel
    Gabe Hudson
    978-0-375-71341-5
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Jun 26, 2018
  • The Misfortune of Marion Palm
    The Misfortune of Marion Palm
    A Novel
    Emily Culliton
    978-0-525-43262-3
    $15.95 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Jun 26, 2018
  • Saints for All Occasions
    Saints for All Occasions
    A novel
    J. Courtney Sullivan
    978-0-307-94980-6
    $16.95 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    May 29, 2018
  • Sweetbitter (Movie Tie-In Edition)
    Sweetbitter (Movie Tie-In Edition)
    Stephanie Danler
    978-0-525-56482-9
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Apr 24, 2018
  • Chemistry
    Chemistry
    A Novel
    Weike Wang
    978-0-525-43222-7
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Apr 03, 2018
  • Trajectory
    Trajectory
    Stories
    Richard Russo
    978-1-101-97198-7
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Apr 03, 2018
  • Living in the Weather of the World
    Living in the Weather of the World
    Stories
    Richard Bausch
    978-0-525-43185-5
    $17.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Mar 20, 2018
  • The Delight of Being Ordinary
    The Delight of Being Ordinary
    A Road Trip with the Pope and the Dalai Lama
    Roland Merullo
    978-1-101-97079-9
    $17.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Mar 06, 2018
  • White Tears
    White Tears
    A novel
    Hari Kunzru
    978-1-101-97321-9
    $16.95 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Feb 06, 2018
  • The Girl at the Baggage Claim
    The Girl at the Baggage Claim
    Explaining the East-West Culture Gap
    Gish Jen
    978-1-101-97206-9
    $17.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Jan 16, 2018
  • Celine
    Celine
    A novel
    Peter Heller
    978-1-101-97348-6
    $16.95 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Jan 02, 2018
  • Signals
    Signals
    New and Selected Stories
    Tim Gautreaux
    978-1-101-97251-9
    $17.95 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Dec 12, 2017
  • The Sleepwalker
    The Sleepwalker
    A Novel
    Chris Bohjalian
    978-0-8041-7099-4
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Oct 03, 2017
  • A Gambler's Anatomy
    A Gambler's Anatomy
    A Novel
    Jonathan Lethem
    978-1-101-87367-0
    $16.95 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Sep 05, 2017
  • The Tragedy of Brady Sims
    The Tragedy of Brady Sims
    Ernest J. Gaines
    978-0-525-43446-7
    $15.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Aug 29, 2017
  • Bridget Jones's Baby
    Bridget Jones's Baby
    The Diaries
    Helen Fielding
    978-0-525-43388-0
    $15.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Jul 25, 2017
  • Attic
    Attic
    Katherine Dunn
    978-0-525-43406-1
    $15.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Jul 11, 2017
  • How to Set a Fire and Why
    How to Set a Fire and Why
    A Novel
    Jesse Ball
    978-1-101-91175-4
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Jun 13, 2017
  • Break in Case of Emergency
    Break in Case of Emergency
    A Novel
    Jessica Winter
    978-1-101-91193-8
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Jun 13, 2017
  • The Hopefuls
    The Hopefuls
    Jennifer Close
    978-1-101-91145-7
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    May 30, 2017
  • Bright, Precious Days
    Bright, Precious Days
    A Novel
    Jay McInerney
    978-1-101-97226-7
    $16.95 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    May 30, 2017
  • This Must Be the Place
    This Must Be the Place
    Maggie O'Farrell
    978-0-345-80472-3
    $17.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    May 16, 2017
  • The Pier Falls
    The Pier Falls
    And Other Stories
    Mark Haddon
    978-1-101-97013-3
    $16.95 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    May 02, 2017
  • Dear Fang, With Love
    Dear Fang, With Love
    A Novel
    Rufi Thorpe
    978-1-101-91157-0
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Apr 18, 2017
  • Sweetbitter
    Sweetbitter
    Stephanie Danler
    978-1-101-91186-0
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Apr 04, 2017
  • Honeymoon and Other Stories
    Honeymoon and Other Stories
    Kevin Canty
    978-0-525-43504-4
    $11.99 US
    Ebook
    Vintage
    Feb 22, 2017
  • Before the Wind
    Before the Wind
    A Novel
    Jim Lynch
    978-0-307-94935-6
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Feb 21, 2017
  • Burning Down the House
    Burning Down the House
    A Novel
    Jane Mendelsohn
    978-1-101-91119-8
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Feb 21, 2017
  • The Bed Moved
    The Bed Moved
    Stories
    Rebecca Schiff
    978-1-101-91085-6
    $15.95 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Feb 07, 2017
  • Everybody's Fool
    Everybody's Fool
    A Novel
    Richard Russo
    978-0-307-45482-9
    $16.95 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Jan 24, 2017
  • The Guest Room
    The Guest Room
    Chris Bohjalian
    978-0-8041-7098-7
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Oct 25, 2016
  • The Mare
    The Mare
    A Novel
    Mary Gaitskill
    978-0-307-74360-2
    $16.95 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Oct 04, 2016
  • Sea Lovers
    Sea Lovers
    Selected Stories
    Valerie Martin
    978-0-307-73955-1
    $16.95 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Aug 23, 2016
  • California Bloodstock
    California Bloodstock
    Terry McDonell
    978-0-525-43304-0
    $11.99 US
    Ebook
    Vintage
    Aug 17, 2016
  • The Visiting Privilege
    The Visiting Privilege
    New and Collected Stories
    Joy Williams
    978-1-101-87371-7
    $16.95 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Aug 09, 2016
  • The Captive Condition
    The Captive Condition
    A Novel
    Kevin P. Keating
    978-0-8041-6930-1
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Jul 12, 2016
  • Days of Awe
    Days of Awe
    Lauren Fox
    978-0-307-38827-8
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Jun 28, 2016
  • Our Souls at Night
    Our Souls at Night
    Kent Haruf, Alan Kent Haruf
    978-1-101-91192-1
    $15.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Jun 28, 2016
  • The Jezebel Remedy
    The Jezebel Remedy
    Martin Clark
    978-0-8041-7290-5
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Jun 14, 2016
  • A Cure for Suicide
    A Cure for Suicide
    A Novel
    Jesse Ball
    978-1-101-87213-0
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Jun 14, 2016
  • A Hand Reached Down to Guide Me
    A Hand Reached Down to Guide Me
    Stories and a Novella
    David Gates
    978-0-8041-6874-8
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Apr 19, 2016
  • Act of God
    Act of God
    A Novel
    Jill Ciment
    978-0-8041-6970-7
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Mar 22, 2016
  • Crow Fair
    Crow Fair
    Thomas McGuane
    978-0-345-80591-1
    $16.95 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Mar 08, 2016
  • Voices in the Night
    Voices in the Night
    Steven Millhauser
    978-0-8041-6908-0
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Mar 08, 2016
  • She Weeps Each Time You're Born
    She Weeps Each Time You're Born
    Quan Barry
    978-0-8041-7130-4
    $17.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Feb 23, 2016
  • There's Something I Want You to Do
    There's Something I Want You to Do
    Stories
    Charles Baxter
    978-0-8041-7273-8
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Feb 23, 2016
  • Lucky Alan
    Lucky Alan
    and Other Stories
    Jonathan Lethem
    978-1-101-87366-3
    $15.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Feb 23, 2016
  • The Tusk That Did the Damage
    The Tusk That Did the Damage
    Tania James
    978-0-8041-7343-8
    $16.95 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Feb 09, 2016
  • Single, Carefree, Mellow
    Single, Carefree, Mellow
    Katherine Heiny
    978-0-8041-7315-5
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Jan 26, 2016
  • The Extraordinary Journey of the Fakir Who Got Trapped in an Ikea Wardrobe
    The Extraordinary Journey of the Fakir Who Got Trapped in an Ikea Wardrobe
    Romain Puertolas
    978-0-8041-7208-0
    $17.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Jan 12, 2016
  • Beginners
    Beginners
    Raymond Carver
    978-0-307-94792-5
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Sep 15, 2015
  • The Half-Life of Happiness
    The Half-Life of Happiness
    John Casey
    978-1-101-97128-4
    $9.99 US
    Ebook
    Vintage
    Aug 19, 2015
  • How to Write a Novel
    How to Write a Novel
    Melanie Sumner
    978-1-101-87347-2
    $14.95 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Aug 04, 2015
  • The Singer's Gun
    The Singer's Gun
    Emily St. John Mandel
    978-1-101-91197-6
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Aug 04, 2015
  • The Lola Quartet
    The Lola Quartet
    A Suspense Thriller
    Emily St. John Mandel
    978-1-101-91199-0
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Aug 04, 2015
  • Before, During, After
    Before, During, After
    Richard Bausch
    978-0-307-27913-2
    $16.95 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Jul 21, 2015
  • New American Stories
    New American Stories
    978-0-8041-7354-4
    $17.95 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Jul 21, 2015
  • Park City
    Park City
    New and Selected Stories
    Ann Beattie
    978-1-101-97124-6
    $13.99 US
    Ebook
    Vintage
    Jul 15, 2015
  • Tigerman
    Tigerman
    Nick Harkaway
    978-0-8041-7066-6
    $16.95 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Jun 23, 2015
  • The Dog
    The Dog
    A Novel
    Joseph O'Neill
    978-0-307-47294-6
    $15.95 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Jun 09, 2015
  • The Girls from Corona del Mar
    The Girls from Corona del Mar
    Rufi Thorpe
    978-0-8041-7007-9
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Jun 09, 2015
  • Leave Society
    Leave Society
    Tao Lin
    978-1-101-97447-6
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Aug 03, 2021
  • The Knockout Queen
    The Knockout Queen
    A novel
    Rufi Thorpe
    978-0-525-56729-5
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Mar 02, 2021
  • We Ride Upon Sticks
    We Ride Upon Sticks
    A Novel
    Quan Barry
    978-0-525-56543-7
    $16.95 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Feb 16, 2021
  • Weather
    Weather
    Jenny Offill
    978-0-345-80690-1
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Jan 19, 2021
  • The Resisters
    The Resisters
    A novel
    Gish Jen
    978-0-525-65722-4
    $16.95 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Jan 12, 2021
  • The Red Lotus
    The Red Lotus
    A Novel
    Chris Bohjalian
    978-0-525-56596-3
    $16.95 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Jan 05, 2021
  • The Queen's Gambit (Television Tie-in)
    The Queen's Gambit (Television Tie-in)
    Walter Tevis
    978-0-593-31465-4
    $16.95 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Dec 15, 2020
  • Interior Chinatown
    Interior Chinatown
    A Novel
    Charles Yu
    978-0-307-94847-2
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Nov 17, 2020
  • Sleep Donation
    Sleep Donation
    Karen Russell
    978-0-525-56608-3
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Sep 29, 2020
  • I Give It to You
    I Give It to You
    A Novel
    Valerie Martin
    978-0-385-54639-3
    $27.95 US
    Hardcover
    Nan A. Talese
    Aug 11, 2020
  • Middle England
    Middle England
    A novel
    Jonathan Coe
    978-0-525-56684-7
    $17.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Jul 14, 2020
  • Everything Inside
    Everything Inside
    Stories
    Edwidge Danticat
    978-0-525-56305-1
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Jul 07, 2020
  • The Flight Portfolio
    The Flight Portfolio
    A novel
    Julie Orringer
    978-0-307-94971-4
    $16.95 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Jun 30, 2020
  • Water Witches
    Water Witches
    Chris Bohjalian
    978-0-593-08178-5
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Jun 30, 2020
  • Very Nice
    Very Nice
    A novel
    Marcy Dermansky
    978-0-525-56522-2
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Jun 09, 2020
  • Dual Citizens
    Dual Citizens
    A novel
    Alix Ohlin
    978-0-525-56355-6
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    May 19, 2020
  • The Body in Question
    The Body in Question
    A Novel
    Jill Ciment
    978-0-525-56537-6
    $15.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    May 19, 2020
  • Orange World and Other Stories
    Orange World and Other Stories
    Karen Russell
    978-0-525-56607-6
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    May 05, 2020
  • Lost and Wanted
    Lost and Wanted
    A novel
    Nell Freudenberger
    978-0-8041-7096-3
    $16.95 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Mar 31, 2020
  • The River
    The River
    A novel
    Peter Heller
    978-0-525-56353-2
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Mar 03, 2020
  • Goulash
    Goulash
    A Novel
    Brian Kimberling
    978-0-345-80337-5
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Jan 21, 2020
  • The Stories of Alice Adams
    The Stories of Alice Adams
    Alice Adams
    978-1-9848-9811-1
    $18.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Nov 19, 2019
  • Old Newgate Road
    Old Newgate Road
    A novel
    Keith Scribner
    978-0-525-56346-4
    $17.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Oct 08, 2019
  • Notes from the Fog
    Notes from the Fog
    Ben Marcus
    978-1-101-97168-0
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Jul 09, 2019
  • Red, White, Blue
    Red, White, Blue
    A novel
    Lea Carpenter
    978-0-525-43298-2
    $16.95 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Jun 04, 2019
  • Good Trouble
    Good Trouble
    Stories
    Joseph O'Neill
    978-0-525-43664-5
    $15.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    May 14, 2019
  • Sociable
    Sociable
    Rebecca Harrington
    978-0-8041-7217-2
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Feb 05, 2019
  • The Flight Attendant
    The Flight Attendant
    A Novel
    Chris Bohjalian
    978-0-525-43268-5
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Jan 08, 2019
  • Cockfosters
    Cockfosters
    Stories
    Helen Simpson
    978-0-525-56362-4
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Sep 04, 2018
  • Gork, the Teenage Dragon
    Gork, the Teenage Dragon
    A Novel
    Gabe Hudson
    978-0-375-71341-5
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Jun 26, 2018
  • The Misfortune of Marion Palm
    The Misfortune of Marion Palm
    A Novel
    Emily Culliton
    978-0-525-43262-3
    $15.95 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Jun 26, 2018
  • Saints for All Occasions
    Saints for All Occasions
    A novel
    J. Courtney Sullivan
    978-0-307-94980-6
    $16.95 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    May 29, 2018
  • Sweetbitter (Movie Tie-In Edition)
    Sweetbitter (Movie Tie-In Edition)
    Stephanie Danler
    978-0-525-56482-9
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Apr 24, 2018
  • Chemistry
    Chemistry
    A Novel
    Weike Wang
    978-0-525-43222-7
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Apr 03, 2018
  • Trajectory
    Trajectory
    Stories
    Richard Russo
    978-1-101-97198-7
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Apr 03, 2018
  • Living in the Weather of the World
    Living in the Weather of the World
    Stories
    Richard Bausch
    978-0-525-43185-5
    $17.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Mar 20, 2018
  • The Delight of Being Ordinary
    The Delight of Being Ordinary
    A Road Trip with the Pope and the Dalai Lama
    Roland Merullo
    978-1-101-97079-9
    $17.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Mar 06, 2018
  • White Tears
    White Tears
    A novel
    Hari Kunzru
    978-1-101-97321-9
    $16.95 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Feb 06, 2018
  • The Girl at the Baggage Claim
    The Girl at the Baggage Claim
    Explaining the East-West Culture Gap
    Gish Jen
    978-1-101-97206-9
    $17.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Jan 16, 2018
  • Celine
    Celine
    A novel
    Peter Heller
    978-1-101-97348-6
    $16.95 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Jan 02, 2018
  • Signals
    Signals
    New and Selected Stories
    Tim Gautreaux
    978-1-101-97251-9
    $17.95 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Dec 12, 2017
  • The Sleepwalker
    The Sleepwalker
    A Novel
    Chris Bohjalian
    978-0-8041-7099-4
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Oct 03, 2017
  • A Gambler's Anatomy
    A Gambler's Anatomy
    A Novel
    Jonathan Lethem
    978-1-101-87367-0
    $16.95 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Sep 05, 2017
  • The Tragedy of Brady Sims
    The Tragedy of Brady Sims
    Ernest J. Gaines
    978-0-525-43446-7
    $15.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Aug 29, 2017
  • Bridget Jones's Baby
    Bridget Jones's Baby
    The Diaries
    Helen Fielding
    978-0-525-43388-0
    $15.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Jul 25, 2017
  • Attic
    Attic
    Katherine Dunn
    978-0-525-43406-1
    $15.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Jul 11, 2017
  • How to Set a Fire and Why
    How to Set a Fire and Why
    A Novel
    Jesse Ball
    978-1-101-91175-4
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Jun 13, 2017
  • Break in Case of Emergency
    Break in Case of Emergency
    A Novel
    Jessica Winter
    978-1-101-91193-8
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Jun 13, 2017
  • The Hopefuls
    The Hopefuls
    Jennifer Close
    978-1-101-91145-7
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    May 30, 2017
  • Bright, Precious Days
    Bright, Precious Days
    A Novel
    Jay McInerney
    978-1-101-97226-7
    $16.95 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    May 30, 2017
  • This Must Be the Place
    This Must Be the Place
    Maggie O'Farrell
    978-0-345-80472-3
    $17.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    May 16, 2017
  • The Pier Falls
    The Pier Falls
    And Other Stories
    Mark Haddon
    978-1-101-97013-3
    $16.95 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    May 02, 2017
  • Dear Fang, With Love
    Dear Fang, With Love
    A Novel
    Rufi Thorpe
    978-1-101-91157-0
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Apr 18, 2017
  • Sweetbitter
    Sweetbitter
    Stephanie Danler
    978-1-101-91186-0
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Apr 04, 2017
  • Honeymoon and Other Stories
    Honeymoon and Other Stories
    Kevin Canty
    978-0-525-43504-4
    $11.99 US
    Ebook
    Vintage
    Feb 22, 2017
  • Before the Wind
    Before the Wind
    A Novel
    Jim Lynch
    978-0-307-94935-6
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Feb 21, 2017
  • Burning Down the House
    Burning Down the House
    A Novel
    Jane Mendelsohn
    978-1-101-91119-8
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Feb 21, 2017
  • The Bed Moved
    The Bed Moved
    Stories
    Rebecca Schiff
    978-1-101-91085-6
    $15.95 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Feb 07, 2017
  • Everybody's Fool
    Everybody's Fool
    A Novel
    Richard Russo
    978-0-307-45482-9
    $16.95 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Jan 24, 2017
  • The Guest Room
    The Guest Room
    Chris Bohjalian
    978-0-8041-7098-7
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Oct 25, 2016
  • The Mare
    The Mare
    A Novel
    Mary Gaitskill
    978-0-307-74360-2
    $16.95 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Oct 04, 2016
  • Sea Lovers
    Sea Lovers
    Selected Stories
    Valerie Martin
    978-0-307-73955-1
    $16.95 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Aug 23, 2016
  • California Bloodstock
    California Bloodstock
    Terry McDonell
    978-0-525-43304-0
    $11.99 US
    Ebook
    Vintage
    Aug 17, 2016
  • The Visiting Privilege
    The Visiting Privilege
    New and Collected Stories
    Joy Williams
    978-1-101-87371-7
    $16.95 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Aug 09, 2016
  • The Captive Condition
    The Captive Condition
    A Novel
    Kevin P. Keating
    978-0-8041-6930-1
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Jul 12, 2016
  • Days of Awe
    Days of Awe
    Lauren Fox
    978-0-307-38827-8
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Jun 28, 2016
  • Our Souls at Night
    Our Souls at Night
    Kent Haruf, Alan Kent Haruf
    978-1-101-91192-1
    $15.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Jun 28, 2016
  • The Jezebel Remedy
    The Jezebel Remedy
    Martin Clark
    978-0-8041-7290-5
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Jun 14, 2016
  • A Cure for Suicide
    A Cure for Suicide
    A Novel
    Jesse Ball
    978-1-101-87213-0
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Jun 14, 2016
  • A Hand Reached Down to Guide Me
    A Hand Reached Down to Guide Me
    Stories and a Novella
    David Gates
    978-0-8041-6874-8
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Apr 19, 2016
  • Act of God
    Act of God
    A Novel
    Jill Ciment
    978-0-8041-6970-7
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Mar 22, 2016
  • Crow Fair
    Crow Fair
    Thomas McGuane
    978-0-345-80591-1
    $16.95 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Mar 08, 2016
  • Voices in the Night
    Voices in the Night
    Steven Millhauser
    978-0-8041-6908-0
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Mar 08, 2016
  • She Weeps Each Time You're Born
    She Weeps Each Time You're Born
    Quan Barry
    978-0-8041-7130-4
    $17.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Feb 23, 2016
  • There's Something I Want You to Do
    There's Something I Want You to Do
    Stories
    Charles Baxter
    978-0-8041-7273-8
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Feb 23, 2016
  • Lucky Alan
    Lucky Alan
    and Other Stories
    Jonathan Lethem
    978-1-101-87366-3
    $15.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Feb 23, 2016
  • The Tusk That Did the Damage
    The Tusk That Did the Damage
    Tania James
    978-0-8041-7343-8
    $16.95 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Feb 09, 2016
  • Single, Carefree, Mellow
    Single, Carefree, Mellow
    Katherine Heiny
    978-0-8041-7315-5
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Jan 26, 2016
  • The Extraordinary Journey of the Fakir Who Got Trapped in an Ikea Wardrobe
    The Extraordinary Journey of the Fakir Who Got Trapped in an Ikea Wardrobe
    Romain Puertolas
    978-0-8041-7208-0
    $17.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Jan 12, 2016
  • Beginners
    Beginners
    Raymond Carver
    978-0-307-94792-5
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Sep 15, 2015
  • The Half-Life of Happiness
    The Half-Life of Happiness
    John Casey
    978-1-101-97128-4
    $9.99 US
    Ebook
    Vintage
    Aug 19, 2015
  • How to Write a Novel
    How to Write a Novel
    Melanie Sumner
    978-1-101-87347-2
    $14.95 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Aug 04, 2015
  • The Singer's Gun
    The Singer's Gun
    Emily St. John Mandel
    978-1-101-91197-6
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Aug 04, 2015
  • The Lola Quartet
    The Lola Quartet
    A Suspense Thriller
    Emily St. John Mandel
    978-1-101-91199-0
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Aug 04, 2015
  • Before, During, After
    Before, During, After
    Richard Bausch
    978-0-307-27913-2
    $16.95 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Jul 21, 2015
  • New American Stories
    New American Stories
    978-0-8041-7354-4
    $17.95 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Jul 21, 2015
  • Park City
    Park City
    New and Selected Stories
    Ann Beattie
    978-1-101-97124-6
    $13.99 US
    Ebook
    Vintage
    Jul 15, 2015
  • Tigerman
    Tigerman
    Nick Harkaway
    978-0-8041-7066-6
    $16.95 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Jun 23, 2015
  • The Dog
    The Dog
    A Novel
    Joseph O'Neill
    978-0-307-47294-6
    $15.95 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Jun 09, 2015
  • The Girls from Corona del Mar
    The Girls from Corona del Mar
    Rufi Thorpe
    978-0-8041-7007-9
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Jun 09, 2015

Other books by this author

  • Steps
    Steps
    Mona Simpson
    978-0-525-43660-7
    $0.99 US
    Ebook
    Vintage
    May 23, 2017
  • Casebook
    Casebook
    Mona Simpson
    978-0-345-80728-1
    $15.95 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Feb 03, 2015
  • My Hollywood
    My Hollywood
    Mona Simpson
    978-0-307-47502-2
    $15.95 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Aug 09, 2011
  • Off Keck Road
    Off Keck Road
    A Novella
    Mona Simpson
    978-0-375-70906-7
    $14.95 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Sep 11, 2001
  • A Regular Guy
    A Regular Guy
    Mona Simpson
    978-0-679-77271-2
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Oct 15, 1997
  • Anywhere but Here
    Anywhere but Here
    Mona Simpson
    978-0-679-73738-4
    $17.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Jan 15, 1992
  • Steps
    Steps
    Mona Simpson
    978-0-525-43660-7
    $0.99 US
    Ebook
    Vintage
    May 23, 2017
  • Casebook
    Casebook
    Mona Simpson
    978-0-345-80728-1
    $15.95 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Feb 03, 2015
  • My Hollywood
    My Hollywood
    Mona Simpson
    978-0-307-47502-2
    $15.95 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Aug 09, 2011
  • Off Keck Road
    Off Keck Road
    A Novella
    Mona Simpson
    978-0-375-70906-7
    $14.95 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Sep 11, 2001
  • A Regular Guy
    A Regular Guy
    Mona Simpson
    978-0-679-77271-2
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Oct 15, 1997
  • Anywhere but Here
    Anywhere but Here
    Mona Simpson
    978-0-679-73738-4
    $17.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Jan 15, 1992
 Keep in touch!
Sign up for news from Penguin Random House Higher Education.
Subscribe
Connect with Us!

Get the latest news on all things Higher Education. Learn about our books, authors, teacher events, and more!

Friend us on Facebook!

Follow us on Twitter!

Subscribe on YouTube!

Our mission is to foster a universal passion for reading by partnering with authors to help create stories and communicate ideas that inform, entertain, and inspire.

Privacy Policy   |   Terms of Use

© 2021 Penguin Random House

About Higher Education

  • About Us
  • Digital Solutions
  • FAQs
  • Conferences
  • Submit a desk/exam request
  • Contact your Higher Education Representative
  • Browse & subscribe to our newsletters

Penguin Random House Education

  • Elementary
  • Secondary
  • Higher Ed
  • Common Reads

Penguin Random House

  • penguinrandomhouse.com
  • global.penguinrandomhouse.com
  • Penguin Random House Speakers Bureau

About Higher Education

  • About Us
  • Digital Solutions
  • FAQs
  • Conferences

Penguin Random House Education

  • Elementary
  • Secondary
  • Higher Ed
  • Common Reads
  • Submit a desk/exam request
  • Contact your Higher Education Representative
  • Browse & subscribe to our newsletters

Penguin Random House

  • penguinrandomhouse.com
  • global.penguinrandomhouse.com
  • Penguin Random House Speakers Bureau

Privacy Policy   |   Terms of Use

© 2021 Penguin Random House
Back to Top

/