An Oral History of Atlantis: Stories

Gilt-edged stories that slice clean through the mundanity of modern life, from the author of Same Bed Different Dreams, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize

"Ed Park is one of the funniest writers working today, and among the most humane."--Kaveh Akbar, author of Martyr!

In "Machine City" a college student's chance role in a friend's movie blurs the line between his character and his true self. (Is he a robot?) In "Slide to Unlock" a man comes to terms with his life via the passwords he struggles to remember in extremis. (What's his mom's name backward?) And in "Weird Menace" a director and faded movie star gab about science fiction, bad costume choices, and lost loves on a commentary track for a B-film from the '80s that neither remembers all that well.

In Ed Park's utterly original collection, An Oral History of Atlantis, characters bemoan their fleeting youth, focus on their breathing, meet cute, break up, write book reviews, translate ancient glyphs, bid on stuff online, whale watch, and once in a while find solace in the sublime. Throughout, Park deploys his trademark wit to create a world both strikingly recognizable and delightfully other. Spanning a quarter century, these sixteen stories tell the absurd truth about our lives. They capture the moment when the present becomes the past--and are proof positive that Ed Park is one of the most imaginative and insightful writers working today.

Author: Ed Park
Publisher: Random House
Published: 07/29/2025
Pages: 224
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 0.80lbs
Size: 8.30h x 5.50w x 1.00d
ISBN: 9780812998993


Review Citation(s):
Library Journal 05/01/2025 pg. 2
Publishers Weekly 05/05/2025
Kirkus Reviews 06/01/2025
Booklist 06/01/2025 pg. 29
Shelf Awareness 07/27/2025
BookPage 08/01/2025

About the Author
Ed Park is the author of the novels Same Bed Different Dreams, which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Fiction, was named a Top Ten Book of the Year by Publishers Weekly and was a New York Times Notable Book; and Personal Days, a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award. His short fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, McSweeney's, Vice, Harvard Review, and other periodicals and anthologies, and he writes regularly for The New York Review of Books, Harper's, The Atlantic, Bookforum, and elsewhere. Ed was a founding editor of The Believer and the former literary editor of The Voice Literary Supplement, and has also worked in publishing. Born in Buffalo, he lives in Manhattan with his family, and currently teaches writing at Princeton University.