The long-awaited return of a quintessentially American storyteller



“You’re as likely to be hit twice by lightning on a Monday as see a wood chipper pull a man into its maw.”

So begins North of Ordinary, John Rolfe Gardner’s virtuosic story collection of survivors getting by despite the odds in a shifting world. In these pages, we meet a nervous young apprentice to a weathered tree climber; a dangerously obsessed student at a Southern Bible college; an attractive schemer trying to build an audience for her tiny radio station; an undercover, cross-dressing lawman whose friendship changes the life of a deaf child in a suburban cul-de-sac; and an elderly Black mason whose knowledge of the town’s history harbors truths that shake his visitor’s foundation.

Surprising, touching, and deeply humane, the ten stories of North of Ordinary offer an intimate, revelatory look at our fractured society and pull us together through the power of art.

Introduction by: Christopher Benfey
Illustrated by: Maria Nicklin