Fortune Smiles: Stories

Adam Johnson

Aug 2015 · Sold by Random House

About this ebook

The National Book Award–winning story collection from the author of The Orphan Master’s Son offers something rare in fiction: a new way of looking at the world.

“MASTERFUL.”—The Washington Post     “ENTRANCING.”—O: The Oprah Magazine     “PERCEPTIVE AND BRAVE.”—The New York Times

Throughout these six stories, Pulitzer Prize winner Adam Johnson delves deep into love and loss, natural disasters, the influence of technology, and how the political shapes the personal, giving voice to the perspectives we don’t often hear.

In “Nirvana,” a programmer whose wife has a rare disease finds solace in a digital simulacrum of the president of the United States. In “Hurricanes Anonymous,” a young man searches for the mother of his son in a Louisiana devastated by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. “George Orwell Was a Friend of Mine” follows a former warden of a Stasi prison in East Germany who vehemently denies his past, even as pieces of it are delivered in packages to his door. And in the unforgettable title story, Johnson returns to his signature subject, North Korea, depicting two defectors from Pyongyang who are trying to adapt to their new lives in Seoul, while one cannot forget the woman he left behind.

WINNER OF THE STORY PRIZE • A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK 

NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The Miami Herald • San Francisco Chronicle • USA Today 

AND ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The Washington Post  • NPR • Marie Claire • St. Louis Post-Dispatch • BuzzFeed • The Daily Beast • Los Angeles Magazine • The Independent • BookPage • Kirkus Reviews

“Remarkable . . . Adam Johnson is one of America’s greatest living writers.”—The Huffington Post

“Haunting, harrowing . . . Johnson’s writing is as rich in compassion as it is in invention, and that rare combination makes Fortune Smiles worth treasuring.”—USA Today

“Fortune Smiles [blends] exotic scenarios, morally compromised characters, high-wire action, rigorously limber prose, dense thickets of emotion, and, most critically, our current techno-moment.”—The Boston Globe
 
“Johnson’s boundary-pushing stories make for exhilarating reading.”—San Francisco Chronicle

Ratings and reviews

<i>Fortune Smiles</i> by Adam Johnson is one of the best books I've ever read, and absolutely the best short story collection I've ever read. Most short story collections offer one really good story, but then fill the rest of the space between the covers with mediocre offerings. In this collection, there was one story that I was lukewarm about ("Interesting Facts") and the rest were just amazing, including "Nirvana," which is easily one of the five best short stories I have ever read, anywhere, and it alone makes the book worth the purchase price. What is wonderful about these stories is the level of complexity that Johnson brings to the characters. Each story features a character in a difficult situation. These characters are all battling loss. Some are trying to prevent loss. Some are trying to regain what they've lost. Some are trying to make sense of what they lost. It all makes for very poignant reading, but what really makes these stories stand out is Johnson's ability to create sympathetic characters. With great subtlety, these characters lay their vulnerabilities wide. Their motivations are apparent, believable, and understandable until I am rooting for even the most despicable character in the book to do hold out and do the right thing. I feel absolute pity for him, and I can completely and clearly see the world through his eyes. On top of the compelling, rich characters, Johnson also offers a wide variety of settings. These stories take place all over the map. From Lake Charles, Louisiana to South Korea, these characters all come from different places, different walks of life. And in each one, it is apparent that Johnson has done some research. The level of detail demonstrates that this is an author who cares about his stories and his readers. Not only are the characters bold and present, but they are acting and reacting to a vivid, detailed world. Johnson's ability to craft incredible, life-like characters is amazing, and largely unparalleled in contemporary fiction. These are stories that cut to the gut, that make the reader feel. Most award-winning fiction leaves me cold and wondering what I missed. Not this book. It is plainly obvious to me why this book is deserving of the Pulitzer Prize.

About the author

Adam Johnson is the author of Fortune Smiles, winner of the National Book Award and the Story Prize and a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and The Orphan Master’s Son, winner of the Pulitzer Prize, the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, and the California Book Award and a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Johnson’s other awards include a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Whiting Writers’ Award, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, and a Stegner Fellowship; he was also a finalist for the New York Public Library’s Young Lions Award. His previous books are Emporium, a short story collection, and the novel Parasites Like Us. Johnson teaches creative writing at Stanford University and lives in San Francisco with his wife and children.