Era of Not Quite

Douglas Watson is the winner of the first annual BOA Short Fiction Prize. He holds an MFA in creative writing from Ohio State University and an MA in history from Brown University. He works at TIME magazine and has also done editorial work at Sports Illustrated, The Journal, and two academic journals, The New England Quarterly and Current History. Stories from The Era of Not Quite have appeared in Tin House (online), Sou'Wester, and Fifty-Two Stories.

"Modest in their ambitions and narrow in scope, these tales, in which, for example, a dragon bites off his own foot for having 'wronged beauty,' will stick with you."--Booklist review "What it means to live in the Era of Not Quite is to reach for a thing, and not quite seize it. And then to keep reaching."--The Journal "Watson's linguistics are described as "Cirque du Soleil for book nerds ... while this collection certainly is writerly, it isn't only for the insider club of MFA alums. Anyone who loves language will devour this book because linguistically, Watson does things with a sentence that are so subtle and masterful, you find yourself startled by their effects." -HTML Giant "Several of the stories in The Era of Not Quite... blend the surreal and a detached delivery together movingly, taking what reads like an aphorism and bending it back towards intimacy." -Vol. 1 Brooklyn Review "Watson's fabulist fictions make us laugh at ourselves, our incomplete longings, and irrational fears ... With a wicked humor and a sense of the absurd somewhere between Beckett and George Saunders, Watson makes us laugh while pointing out the irrationality of our desires." -Rain Taxi "When I read Douglas Watson's debut story collection, The Era of Not Quite, I was awash with a rare and nourishing feeling: that what I was reading was exactly what I needed to be reading at that time exactly. Each of his stories deals a dark and witty blow. The collection is alive with a searing sense of humor, with wild formal play. It cranked me up and it stomped me down. I've been recommending this book to everyone." -Heavy Feather "I read a handful of stories from The Era of Not Quite last night, then gobbled up a few more today, when I had some free moments. It's a truly standout collection, in the vein of some of the great satirists and absurdists, writers like Vonnegut, Barthelme, and Coover, a collection I'll certainly finish, go back to again."- Story 366

• ContentsAgainst Specificity4The Death of John O’Brien16The Era of Not Quite19Molly Rivers, 83, Held Outlandish Views31I’m Sorry I Lost the Scrap of Paper on Which You Outlined Your Plans for the Future33My Memoir34When the World Broke35Men44My Foot Is on Fire47The Man Who Was Cast into the Void48What I Did on My Summer Vacation52Special Advertising Section61Wolves65The Purest Note That Had Ever Been Sung67Two Country Gentlemen76The Cave78Pachyderms82Life on the Moon84Marcy Loves Joey85The Fate of Mothers86Narrative of the Life of Jacob Livesey87Author Sentenced for Life89New Animal92The Messenger Who Did Not Become a Hero106Acknowledgments125