With Orphans, Ben Tanzer continues his ongoing literary survey of the 21st Century male psyche, yet does so with a newfound twist, contemporary themes set in a world that is anything but. In this dystopian tale of a future Chicago, workers are sent off to sell property on Mars to those who can afford to leave, leaving what's left to those who have little choice but to make do with what's left behind: burnt out neighborhoods, black helicopters policing the streets, flash mobs, the unemployed in their scruffy suits, robots taking the few jobs that remain, and clones who replace those workers who do find work so that a modicum of family stability can be maintained. It is a story about the impact of work on family. How work warps our best intentions. And how everything we think we know about ourselves looks different during a recession. This idea is writ large in the world of Orphans, where recession is all we know, work is only available to the lucky few, and this lucky few not only need to fear being replaced on the job, but in their homes and beds. It is also a story about drugs, surfing, punk music, lost youth, parenting, sex, pop culture as vernacular, and a conscious intersection of Death of a Salesman or Glengarry Glen Ross with the Martian Chronicles. Looking to the genre of science fiction has allowed Tanzer to produce something new and fresh, expanding both his literary horizons, and the potential market for his work. Tanzer also looks to the story of Bartleby the Scrivener with Orphans, and the question of what are we allowed as workers, and expected to be, or do, when work is fraught with desperation. Ultimately, Orphans is intended to be a contemporary story about manhood and what it means in today's world, told from the perspective of work and family, and how any of us manage the parameters that family and work produce; but it's a story told in a futuristic world, where our greatest fears are in fact already realized, because there isn't enough of anything, and we are all too easily replaced.

Orphans (Switchgrass Books)

Literature & Fiction

Tanzer, Ben

Genre Fiction

Northern Illinois University Press

Lost in Space is a sometimes funny, sometimes sad, but always lively essay collection about fathers and sons, and their relationship to not only one another, but pop culture, death, and sex—because sex sells, even if you're otherwise focused on parenting and the generation spanning cultural impact of Star Wars.The essays in Lost in Space are focused on an array of child-rearing topics including sleep, discipline, first haircuts, deceased parents/grandparents and illness, and the inherent challenges and humor that coincide with, and are intrinsically tied-into, these stages of life. The essays also recognize the ongoing presence of the author's dead father in his life even as he seeks to parent without his father's guidance or advice.

Lost in Space: A Father's Journey There and Back Again

Politics & Social Sciences

Social Sciences

Curbside Splendor Publishing

Literary Nonfiction. Memoir. From the comedic, often luminous mind of Ben Tanzer comes a memoir about one of life's true complexities: being cool. Written in touching vignettes, like snapshots of history, Tanzer eloquently illuminates his past with humor and resolve. From crushing on columnists of Tiger Beat magazine to losing his virginity after his "second attempt to do so"; from his love of Comic Con and Sci–Fi to his struggles with infertility, BE COOL is a confession to a generation of readers, done so with acute precision and utmost trust.

Be Cool

History & Criticism

Dock Street Press

Ben Tanzer's third novel is an adventure in being a grown up, in facing relationships and jobs, friendships and parenthood. A true exploration of what it means to live in our world, saturated with pop culture in the midst of real life struggles.

You Can Make Him Like You

Literary

Artistically Declined Press

After Hours: Scorsese, Grief and the Grammar of Cinema (Auteur, 1)

Biographies & Memoirs

Arts & Literature

Ig Publishing

Featuring dark character studies of childhood, middle age, and (lack of) grace under pressure, these stories are among the best work of Tanzer's career, and voracious fans of his writing will surely be pleased and satisfied to have these small masterpieces collected together into one easy-to-read volume. So take a stool at Thirsty's, order another Yuengling, and be prepared to be transported into the rusted heart and blackened soul of the American small-town, as one of our nation's bestcontemporary authors takes us on a remarkable journey to a place full of love and lust and gin and sin. Previously published asThe New York Stories, this classic collection has been revised and edited, and includes a new introduction by Tortoise Books publisher Gerald Brennan.

Upstate

Tortoise Books

The Missing

Contemporary

7.13 Books

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Books by Tanzer, Ben