My favorite collection of short stories in recent memory.

Nancy Pearl, NPR Morning Edition

Understories

What if there were a city that consisted only of restaurants? What if Paul Gauguin had gone to Greenland instead of Tahiti? What if there were a field called Umbrology, the study of shadows, where physicists and shadow puppeteers worked side by side? Full of speculative daring though firmly anchored in the tradition of realism, Tim Horvath’s stories explore all of this and more— blending the everyday and the wondrous to contend with age-old themes of loss, identity, imagination, and the search for human connection. Whether making offhand references to Mystery Science Theater, providing a new perspective on Heidegger’s philosophy and forays into Nazism, or following the imaginary travels of a library book, Horvath’s writing is as entertaining as it is thought provoking.

New Hampshire Literary Award Winner

NPR Books Summer Reading Selection

New Hampshire Public Radio Summer Books Selection

Salon What to Read Awards

Largehearted Boy Favorite Short Story Collection of the Year

Late Night Library Battle of the Books Final Four

Understories has also been recognized as one of the best books of the year by Matt Bell, Michele Filgate (@ Vol. 1 Brooklyn), Okla Elliott (@ Heavy Feather Review)Jason Jordan, Jennifer SpiegelTerry Weyna (@ Reading the Leaves)and Amber Sparks (@ Big Other).

cover image of Understories

Ebook

ISBN
9781934137499

Paperback

ISBN
9781934137444

Listen to librarian extraordinaire and “NPR’s go-to books guru” Nancy Pearl discuss Understories with Steve Inskeep on NPR’s Morning Edition and with Steve Scher on KUOW’s The Record; and watch her describe how her “favorite collection of short stories in recent memory” is part of a new tradition of “elastic realism” in contemporary literature.

A cause for celebration… Tim Horvath’s first collection of short fiction, Understories, has received the New Hampshire Literary Award for Outstanding Fiction!

Listen in on a very fun conversation with Tim Horvath and Brad Listi on the Other People podcast. Topics include their Midwestern childhood, bridge climbing in New York, the birthday they both share with Herman Melville, Dom DeLuise, and Jerry Garcia, and Tim’s “red hot” Understories.

Tim Horvath discusses Understories with the Boston Globe, Bloom, and TheNervous Breakdownmuses on his inspirations at TSP: The official blog of The Story Prize; explains his offbeat research for the collection at Necessary Fictionanswers questions at Monkeybicycleoffers reading recommendations atThe Short Formcontributes a guest post for Robert Lopez’ “No News Today” series; and talks toThe Philadelphia Review of Book’s Andrew Ervin in a three way conversation with Gabriel Blackwell and Jensen Beach (Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3).

Visit Storyville to download a selection from Understories and read Tim Horvath’s story about its inception.

Read a story from Understories and an interview with Tim Horvath about its origin at The Collagist.

Read more interviews with Tim Horvath about the art of teaching and writing in The Hippo and at the Walnut Hill School for the Arts website.

portrait of Tim Horvath
Clay Enos

Tim Horvath, a graduate of Vassar College, Teachers College-Columbia University, and the University of New Hampshire, is an associate editor for Camera Obscura Journal and teaches creative writing at New Hampshire Institute of Art and Boston’s Grub Street writing center. He has also worked part-time as a counselor in a psychiatric hospital, primarily with autistic children and adolescents. Understories, Horvath’s first collection of short fiction, includes the award-winning “Understory,” selected by Bill Henderson for the Raymond Carver Short Story Award, and “Circulation,” selected by Clark Blaise for the Society for the Study of the Short Story Prize. His stories have also appeared in Conjunctions, Fiction, Alimentum, Puerto del Sol, and elsewhere. He lives in New Hampshire with his wife and daughter.

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Praise for Understories

Profound… with more to say on the human condition than most full books. …A remarkable collection, with pitch-perfect leaps of imagination.

Minneapolis Star Tribune

Horvath doesn’t just tell a story, he gives readers a window into the hearts, minds and souls of his characters.

Concord Monitor

This stunning collection revels in wordplay and inventiveness, and is one of the finest short fiction collections I have read all year.

Largehearted Boy

Gets at the heart of our contemporary zeitgeist . . . Echoing the intricate metaphysical labyrinths of Borges, the philosophizing literary absurdity of David Foster Wallace, and the American-styled magical realism of Lethem, [Understories] is a deeply reflective, highly imaginative work.

Tottenville Review

This is transformative prose at its best…. If you want an actual contemporary wordsmith who does not just tinker but thrives in the micro-worlds of Calvino and Borges, Walser and Perec, read Understories.

HTML Giant

Touching and captivating . . . though I may have come to Understories for the weirdness, I stayed around for the quality of the writing and the emotions of the characters.

InDigest

Weird and wonderful. . . . But for all th[e] playfulness—sometimes intellectual, sometimes bawdy—Understories is no rarefied exercise. Horvath rallies all the senses, smell and touch and taste and the others, in support of his interrogation of the universe, and his work is firmly grounded in the real world no matter how fantastic his musings.

Bloom

As any great book, Understories confronts the making of fiction itself, intermittently directly confronting the mechanics of fabrication. . . . A major accomplishment by a major writer . . . full of writing as deeply aware of its antecedents as it is aware of the possibilities within, of, and about narrative.

Big Other

This collection stand[s] out. There’s plenty of imagination [in Understories] but it’s rooted in recognizable and occasionally irrational emotions, a human quality that makes these stories endure. . . . Below the striking imagery, there’s abundant emotional depth to be found.

Vol. 1 Brooklyn

A wild ride. [Understories] is a highly inventive short story collection that interweaves absurdity with a deep understanding of what makes people tick.

Kenyon Review

Some books inspire, others seize. Understories seizes, shakes, then splits everything open.

Punchnel’s

Horvath’s writing is so consistently fun, engaging, inventive, and imaginative while displaying such range between stories, that the reader will never grow bored.

Small Press Book Review

Every echo, despite its resonance, is a kind of individual pocket. . . . As a fiction collection, then, Understories resonates not only on the stories as stories, but as an arrangement of individual parts. The buzz it gives off is the combined buzz of countless pockets, all charged with a life and surprise of their own.

Collagist

These stories are triumphs of the imagination.

Fantasy Literature

With plenty of humor and a good dose of poignancy, Understories is an excellent assortment for those who want something that blends traditional and speculative fiction together well.

Midwest Book Review

Philosophical, sometimes whimsical, darkly funny, thought provoking, intense, evocative.

Bookconscious

The big stories are magnificent—truly they are—but the little ones are gems as well; do not overlook the charming little bodegas and mom & pop shops while you are agape in wonder at the loftier architecture.

A Just Recompense

Elegant . . . there is so much to appreciate in these intelligent and eloquently written, yet deceivingly understated stories.

Books, Personally

Mightily fun . . . in turns vibrant and imaginative, eloquent and thoughtful, and lush and whimsical.

Books Speak Volumes

Just enough off kilter to make one feel a touch dizzy. I loved this collection, and savored it over many months.

Reading the Leaves

Horvath’s strength is absolutely concept: he imagines places and scenarios, and ‘what ifs’ himself into the most interesting premises.

Brunette Bibliophile

Horvath knows how to write one kick-arse sentence after another.

Bosco’s Going Down

Understories is fueled by a wonderfully inventive mind, but ultimately, it is a mind in service to the heart. Horvath’s attention is always squarely on us: who we are, who we have been, and how a great story can transform us.

Matt Bell, author of Cataclysm Baby

Remarkable writing and remarkably rewarding reading: stories equally saturated in contemporary fact and transfactual acids. An atlas of canny and uncanny maps, mainly cityscapes, of the branching imagination and convoluted heart. Move over, Mercator and Google Earth: make way for Horvath’s haunting projections.

Brian Boyd, author of Stalking Nabokov

Tim Horvath is a fluid, inventive writer who deftly interweaves the palpably real and the pyrotechnically fantastic. At once playful, deeply moving, and sharply funny, Understories satisfies the mind, the heart, and the gut.

Kate Christensen, author of The Astral and The Great Man

Horvath seems to be channeling, all at once, Borges and Calvino and Kevin Brockmeier. And it all works.

Rebecca Makkai, author of The Borrower

‘The Understory’ is a terrific reach through history from the pre- and post- Nazi era in Germany up to the present. . . . This is a wonderful story, a first-rate creation by a fine writer.

Bill Henderson, president and editor of Pushcart Press, in his judge’s statement for the Raymond Carver Short Story Award

Tim Horvath is a wonderful writer. There’s a musicality to his prose. It’s evident that he enjoys the way words can sound on the page. His debut short story collection from Bellevue Literary Press reminds me a bit of Kevin Brockmeier, in the sense that both writers combine wordplay with speculative fiction.

Michele Filgate, Community Bookstore (Brooklyn, NY) @ Vol. 1 Brooklyn

Horvath’s stories simultaneously stimulate the intellect while being fantastically imaginative. Contemporary urban life is examined through the looking glass, twisted slightly but still entirely recognizable and relatable. His images imprint, linger and the characters balance on the fine edge of what is real and what is imagined. This is memorable stuff.

Stacie M. Williams, Boswell Book Company (Milwaukee, WI)

To read Understories is to lose oneself on a spelunking expedition and stumble across a subterranean library sprouted from the Earth’s core. You’ll thank me for this one.

Lydia, Brookline Booksmith (Brookline, MA)