Tompkins County Public Library Book Kit
Fortune Smiles
by Adam Johnson
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Book Kit Guide Index
Book Summary …………………………………………………………………………………..Page 3
Author Biography……………………………………………………………………………….Page 4
Book Reviews and Article………………………………………………………………….Pages 5 -7
Reading Guide Questions…………………………………………………………………..Pages 8
Read-A-Likes……………………………………………………………………………………….Pages 9-12
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Tompkins County Public Library Book Kit
"In six masterly stories, Johnson delves deep into love and loss, natural disasters, the influence
of technology, and how the political shapes the personal. "George Orwell Was a Friend of
Mine" follows a former warden of a Stasi prison in East Germany who vehemently denies his
past, even as pieces of it are delivered in packages to his door. "Nirvana," portrays a
programmer whose wife has a rare disease finding solace in a digital simulacrum of the
president of the United States. In "Hurricanes Anonymous" a young man searches for the
mother of his son in a Louisiana devastated by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. And in the
unforgettable title story, Johnson returns to his signature subject, North Korea, depicting two
defectors from Pyongyang who are trying to adapt to their new lives in Seoul, while one cannot
forget the woman he left behind"-- Provided by publisher.
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This short story collection by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Adam Johnson features only six
items, but they're full-fledged doozies that demand careful reading. Despite differences in plot
and setting (like Silicon Valley and North Korea), what they all have in common are realistic
characters enduring tragic events and challenges. Taken together, they give the impression that
these stories could very well be about real people (one, "Interesting Facts," has some
similarities to Johnson's own life). -- Description by Shauna Griffin. – Provided by NoveList
Fiction Guide
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Author Biography
(From the Publisher)
Adam Johnson is the author of The Orphan Master’s Son, winner of the Pulitzer Prize in fiction,
the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, and the California Book Award, and finalist for the National
Book Critics Circle Award. It was named one of the best books of the year by more than a dozen
publications, including The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times,
and Entertainment Weekly. Johnson’s other awards include a Guggenheim Fellowship, a
Whiting Writers’ Award, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, and a Stegner
Fellowship; he was also a finalist for the New York Public Library’s Young Lions Award. His
previous books are Emporium, a short story collection, and the novel Parasites Like Us. Johnson
teaches creative writing at Stanford University and lives in San Francisco with his wife and
children. http://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/authors/98888/adam-johnson
(From Book Browse)
Adam Johnson was born in South Dakota and raised in Arizona. He earned a BA in Journalism
from Arizona State University in 1992; a MFA from the writing program at McNeese State
University, and a PhD in English from Florida State University in 2000.
Johnson teaches creative writing at Stanford University. His fiction has appeared in Esquire, The
Paris Review, Harper's, Tin House, Granta, and Playboy, as well as The Best American Short
Stories. His works include include Emporium, a short-story collection, and the novels Parasites
Like Us and The Orphan Master's Son.
Johnson has received a Whiting Writers' Award, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship,
a Swarthout Writing Award, a Kingsbury Fellowship and a Stegner Fellowship. He was named
Debut Writer of the Year in 2002 by Amazon.com, and in 2003 he was selected for the Barnes &
Noble Discover Great New Writers series. He was nominated for a Young Lions Award from the
New York Public Library and received scholarships from the Bread Loaf and Sewanee writers'
conferences. In 2010, he won the Gina Berriault Literary Award.
He lives in San Francisco.
https://www.bookbrowse.com/biographies/index.cfm/author_number/2104/author/adamjohnson
Book Reviews
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Publishers Weekly:
/* Starred Review */ How do you follow a Pulitzer Prize–winning novel? For Johnson (The
Orphan Master’s Son ), the answer is a story collection, and the tales within are hefty and
memorable. Johnson goes deep (and long—there are only six pieces in this 300 pager) into
unknown worlds. In the title story, two North Korean criminals adjust to post-defection life in
South Korea; in “Nirvana,” a man deals with his wife’s illness by creating an app that lets people
talk to the (fictional) recently assassinated president. Johnson lets us spend time with an East
German prison commander whose former office is a tour stop in a “museum of torture”; a man
coping with hurricanes Katrina and Rita and an array of personal problems; and, in “Dark
Meadow,” the highlight of a very strong collection, a pedophile trying to behave himself in the
face of a variety of temptations. What these very different stories have in common is their
assurance: the environments Johnson creates, along with the often problematic choices their
inhabitants make, are totally believable. Escaping back to North Korea by balloon? Sure. Going
to AA meetings because they offer child care? Makes sense if your ex has just dumped a toddler
on you in post-Rita Lake Charles. Often funny, even when they’re wrenchingly sad, the stories
provide one of the truest satisfactions of reading: the opportunity to sink into worlds we
otherwise would know little or nothing about, ones we might even cross the street to avoid.
(Aug.) --Staff (Reviewed June 22, 2015) (Publishers Weekly, vol 262, issue 25, p)
Library Journal:
After making his mark in 2012 with The Orphan Master's Son, a Pulitzer Prize winner and a New
York Times best seller, Johnson returns with a large-scale short story collection. In the title
piece, a woman with cancer becomes distraught as she contemplates her family living on
without her. Elsewhere, a young man and his girlfriend scour post-Katrina New Orleans for the
mother of his son, and a former Stasi agent reconsiders his past. --Barbara Hoffert (Reviewed
March 1, 2015) (Library Journal, vol 140, issue 4, p69)
Kirkus:
/* Starred Review */ A half-dozen sometimes Carver-esque yarns that find more-or-less
ordinary people facing extraordinary challenges and somehow holding up. Tragedy is always
close to the surface in Johnson's works, with tragicomic layerings, sometimes, but it is tragedy
all the same. So it is with the opening story of the six here, "Nirvana," which takes its title from
the Kurt Cobain-led rock band but shares a spirit with near-future films like Her and Gattaca. A
software engineer, desperate to do right by his paralyzed wife, reanimates people from the
past: "After the doctor left," the narrator says matter-of-factly, "I went into the garage and
started making the president." It's science fiction of a kind but with an extra element of
disspiritment: people exist, but we long for simulacra instead of them, "like she's forgotten that
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her arms don't work and there's no him to embrace." With more than a nod to his Pulitzer
Prize-winning novel, The Orphan Master's Son (2012), Johnson calls on two North Korean
defectors who, now in the South, haven't quite got their new world sussed out but are starting
to get an inkling of how things work: "Christian talk, when said in a non-Christian way, scares
these Southerners to death." Their lessons in fitting in include essentials such as "handling
money, hygiene, being pleasant, avoiding crime," but it's clear that no amount of instruction
will make them feel at home. Safe houses, hospices, hospitals: these are the theaters where
many of the stories take place, all enshrouded in a certain incomprehension but, to Johnson's
great credit, seldom in hopelessness, for his characters are inclined to endure against the odds:
"You turn the ignition and drop the van in gear, and you know this is no ordinary event."
Bittersweet, elegant, full of hard-won wisdom: this is no ordinary book, either.(Kirkus Reviews,
June 15, 2015)
'Fortune Smiles' Can Be Brilliant, But It's
Never Easy
August 19, 20157:03 AM ET
Michael Schaub
Fortune Smiles
by Adam Johnson
Hardcover, 304 pages
"Can you tell a story that doesn't begin, it's just suddenly happening?" asks a character in Adam
Johnson's short story collection, Fortune Smiles. And you can, of course; the best stories stretch
well beyond their first and last words. They're more than the opening scene; they invite the
reader to imagine what came before and what will come after. They're alive and they're limitless.
That's exactly what the best stories in Fortune Smiles are like. It's a book that comes with heavy
expectations — Johnson's previous book, the novel The Orphan Master's Son, won the 2013
Pulitzer Prize for fiction. This new collection, while not flawless, showcases Johnson's immense
creativity and intelligence, and his admirers will find a lot to love in most of these six stories.
It begins with "Nirvana," which follows a computer programmer whose wife is suffering from a
rare disease that's left her essentially paralyzed. His wife finds comfort in the music of Kurt
Cobain; he deals with his stress by interacting with a hologram of the recently assassinated
American president. They both do what they have to do to survive: "We tumble into a well of
despair that's narrow and deep, a place that seals us off. Everything is in the well with us —
careers, goals, travel, children — so close that we can drown them to save ourselves." It's a pitchdark story in a collection mostly devoid of any kind of lightness.
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In "Interesting Facts," a woman with cancer is forced to face the possibility of her own death.
Her husband, like Johnson, is a Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist with Native American heritage.
He steals a character from a novel she's written for a short story of his own, which forces the
reader into an uncomfortable place — how much of this story, of any story, is fiction? And does
it matter, anyway? It's a clever, uniquely unsettling story, filled with quietly chilling observations
— as the woman notes, "The truth is, though, that you don't need to die to know what it's like to
be a ghost."
Johnson is at his best, and darkest, with "Dark Meadow," about a computer repairman with an
interest in child pornography. It's hard to imagine more morbid subject matter, and Johnson
doesn't pull any punches as the man wrestles with his attraction to children: "I know there are
those who are born. But what of those who are made? Do they also have a choice? Can they still
choose?" The ending is one of the most shocking ones in recent fiction. It's a story that's as
necessary as it is difficult to read.
Not every story works quite as well. In "George Orwell Was a Friend of Mine," a former East
German prison warden who refuses to come to terms with his past cruelty is forced to confront it
when a stranger leaves mementos of it on his lawn. The warden lives in deep denial and tries to
explain away his actions with protestations like "I had a duty to the larger picture" and "I only
ran the prison." Johnson's writing is fine, but the warden comes across as one-dimensional, a
stand-in for every person who stubbornly refuses to acknowledge the pain he has caused others.
The other two stories, "Hurricanes Anonymous" and "Fortune Smiles," are beautifully written,
but seem a little incomplete. In the former story, Johnson does a wonderful job portraying a
southwestern Louisiana recovering from Katrina and Rita, but it feels rushed, like a story that
wants to be a novel. The latter story, about two North Koreans who have defected to the south, is
evocative but rambling; Johnson seems a little unsure of himself.
But these are minor concerns. Johnson is tremendously talented, and even though not all of the
stories cohere, they still manage to enlighten. The best stories in the collection are nothing less
than brilliant, even if the worlds he creates aren't necessarily ones we want to live in. But great
literature isn't about making the reader comfortable; it's about coming to terms with the truth,
whether it's beautiful or ugly. And that's harder than it looks — as one character notes, "The
most vital things we hide even from ourselves."
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Discussion Questions
1. Did you have a favorite story in this collection? What was your least favorite? How did
you like the book as a whole? If you have read any of the author's other books, how
does this compare?
2. How did you feel about the characters? Whom did you like or not like and why?
3. “Nirvana” and “Interesting Facts” deal with the impact of serious illness/death on the
individual and the family. What are some of the coping mechanisms used? How does
Johnson combine humor and pathos in these stories? What is the effect?
4. Do the characters of the short stories in Fortune Smiles seem real and believable? Can
you relate to their predicaments? To what extent do they remind you of yourself or
someone you know?
5. The story “Dark Meadow” focuses on child pornography and child sexual abuse. Did this
or other parts of the book make you uncomfortable? If so, why did you feel that way?
Did this lead to a new understanding or awareness of some aspect of your life or subject
that you might not have thought about before?
6. What moral/ethical choices did the characters make? What did you think of those
choices? How would you have chosen?
7. In “Hurricanes Anonymous”, New Orleans and Lake Charles, Louisiana are the settings.
Do the settings figure as a character in the story? How does Hurricane Katrina figure as a
character in the story?
8. In “George Orwell was a Friend of Mine”, how does Hans change or evolve throughout
the course of the story? What events trigger such changes?
9. In the last story, “Fortune Smiles”, what is the role of “luck”? Are the characters' actions
the result of freedom of choice or of destiny?
10. What specific themes did the Johnson emphasize throughout this book? Was there a
common thread that connected the stories? What do you think he is trying to get across
to the reader?
(Questions are adapted from Westview Memorial Library’s “General Questions for fiction
book clubs”.)
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Further Reading
If you enjoy reading the work of Adam Johnson, try the works of these authors or any of the
titles linked below.
George Saunders
Denis Johnson
Franz Kafka
Juno Diaz
Raymond Carver
Dave Eggers
More suggestions are available at coolmaterial.com/feature/best-short-story-collections/
The Orphan Master’s Son
By Johnson, Adam
2012-08 - Paperback
Random House Trade
9780812982626 Check Our Catalog
WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE
In this epic, critically acclaimed tour de force, Adam Johnson provides a
riveting portrait of a world rife with hunger, corruption, and casual cruelty but
also camaraderie, stolen moments of beauty, and love.
NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FINALIST - DAYTON
LITERARY PEACE PRIZE WINNER - LONGLISTED FOR THE AMERICAN
LIBRARY ASSOCIATION'S ANDREW CARNEGIE MEDAL - WINNER OF
THE CALIFORNIA BOOK AWARD FOR FICTION - "NEW YORK TIMES"
BESTSELLER
Drinking Coffee Elsewhere
By Packer, ZZ
2004-02 - Paperback
Riverhead Books
9781573223782 Check Our Catalog
Already an award-winning writer, ZZ Packer now shares with us her debut,
Drinking Coffee Elsewhere. Her impressive range and talent are abundantly
evident: Packer dazzles with her command of language, surprising and
delighting us with unexpected turns and indelible images, as she takes us
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into the lives of characters on the periphery, unsure of where they belong.
We meet a Brownie troop of black girls who are confronted with a troop of
white girls; a young man who goes with his father to the Million Man March
and must decides where his allegiance lies; an international group of drifters
in Japan, who are starving, unable to find work; a girl in a Baltimore ghetto
who has dreams of the larger world she has seen only on the screens in the
television store nearby, where the Lithuanian shopkeeper holds out hope for
attaining his own American Dream.
Birds of a Lesser Paradise
By Mayhew Bergman, Megan
2012-11
Scribner Book Company
9781451643367 Check Our Catalog
Exploring the way our choices and relationships are shaped by the menace
and beauty of the natural world, Megan Mayhew Bergman's powerful and
heartwarming collection captures the surprising moments when the pull of our
biology becomes evident, when love or fear collide with good sense, or when
our attachment to an animal or wild place can't be denied.
Interpreter of Maladies
By Lahiri, Jhumpa
1999-06 - Paperback
Mariner Books
9780395927205
Check Our Catalog
Awards:
Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award (1999)
New Yorker Book (2000)
Pulitzer Prize (2000)
Navigating between the Indian traditions they've inherited and a baffling
new world, the characters in Lahiri's elegant, touching stories seek love
beyond the barriers of culture and generations.
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Refund: Stories
By Bender, Karen
2015-01 - Hardcover
Counterpoint LLC
9781619024557
Check Our Catalog
Awards:
National Book Awards (2015)
Publisher Comments
We think about it every day, sometimes every hour: Money. Who has it. Who doesn
t. How you get it. How you don t.
In Refund, Bender creates an award-winning collection of stories that deeply
explore the ways in which money and the estimation of value affect the lives of her
characters. The stories in Refund reflect our contemporary worldswindlers, reality
show creators, desperate artists, siblings, parents who try to answer the question:
What is the real definition of worth?
In Theft, an eighty-year-old swindler, accustomed to tricking people for their money,
boards a cruise ship to see if she can find something of true valuea human
connection. In Anything for Money, the creator of a reality show is thrown into the
real world when his estranged granddaughter reenters his life in need of a new
heart; and in the title story, young artist parents in downtown Manhattan escape the
attack on 9/11 only to face a battle over their subletted apartment with a stranger
who might have lost more than only her deposit.
Set in contemporary America, these stories herald a work of singular literary merit
by an important writer at the height of her power."
Tenth of December: Stories
By Saunders, George
2014-01
Random House Trade
9780812984255 Check Our Catalog
Awards:
NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE
YEAR BY "THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW"
A collection of stories which includes "Home," a wryly whimsical account of a
soldier's return from war; "Victory lap," a tale about an inventive abduction attempt,
and the title story, in which a suicidal cancer patient saves the life of a young misfit.
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The Spirit Returns: Stories
By Burgin, Richard
2001-09 - Paperback
Johns Hopkins University Press
9780801867965 Check Our Catalog
The Spirit Returns is the fourth collection of original short fiction from Richard
Burgin. His characters are everyday people at emotional and psychological
crossroads. In "The Liar," a man opening up to a dinner companion is reminded of
the emptiness of his own life when the promise of emotional intimacy unexpectedly
goes unfulfilled. A couple on a date face their own gender prejudices, past
disappointments, and sexual expectations in "Carbo's". In the title story, a man who
takes an unusual pleasure out of frightening strangers is forced to deal with his own
fears when he shares this pleasure with one of those strangers. These are flawed
but genuine individuals, rooted in honesty and compassion, and the lines of their
compelling stories trace journeys through insecurity, despair, and, ultimately, hope.
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