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The New York Times–bestselling author of Mrs. Fletcher “turns his satiric gaze on suburbia and unearths gem after gem about modern life” (Connie Ogle, Miami Herald).

Nine Inches, Perrotta’s first true collection, features ten stories—some sharp and funny, some mordant and surprising, and a few intense and disturbing.

Whether he’s dropping into the lives of two teachers—and their love lost and found—in “Nine Inches,” documenting the unraveling of a dad at a Little League game in “The Smile on Happy Chang’s Face,” or gently marking the points of connection between an old woman and a benched high school football player in “Senior Season,” Perrotta writes with a sure sense of his characters and their secret longings.

Nine Inches contains an elegant collection of short fiction: stories that are as assured in their depictions of characters young and old, established and unsure, as any written today.

“With a deft command of structure, [Perrotta] allows multiple characters to cross paths, make mistakes and sometimes correct them, creating ripple effects and counterpoints that add up to a satisfying whole.” —Alix Ohlin, The New York Times

“Nine Inches is a razor-sharp and highly entertaining collection of short stories. It’s also a masterful examination of the fragilities that lie just beneath the surface of our everyday veneers.” —Patrick Ryan, Toronto Star

“Told with wit and grace, Perrotta’s story collection lays bare the shifting relationships we all suffer and seldom comprehend, presenting characters who are ambushed by the hidden intentions of people they thought they knew.” —Publishers Weekly

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00CQYAVP2
Publisher ‏ : ‎ St. Martin's Press; First edition (September 10, 2013)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ September 10, 2013
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 2675 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Print length ‏ : ‎ 258 pages
Reviewer: Karen Lea Hansen
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Another Solid Collection from Perrotta!
Review: I discovered Tom Perrotta back in 2008, when my mom was dying of cancer. I raced through all of his book as I sat with her through chemotherapy appointments and long nights in hospital rooms. Perrotta's keen mix of humor and heart, even amid awkward and morally tenuous situations, grabbed my attention. He is among a handful of authors of which I most eagerly anticipate their new releases and that I will purchase their books without a care towards reviews or subject matter. If he publishes, I'm buying.Nine Inches Stories is Perrotta's second collection of shorts. Perrotta really excels at writing both novels and short stories, but as I have a huge affinity for shorts, making me extra excited for this collection.It's strong and I enjoyed every story. However, the big stand-out was The Chosen Girl about a lonely senior citizen who reaches out to a young girl in a religious cult. It has a completely different feel from the other stories, yet it still keeps with Perrotta's usual theme of adult/teenager connections. Perrotta has a unique spin on what it means to grow up and often plays with ideas of how we are shaped by our childhood. The lines between adults and children are often blurred.Another great piece was Senior Season, about a boy whose football injuries prevent him from playing in his senior year and the impact that it has both on his social life and the way that he views his life trajectory. As an adult reading this story, we know that high school is only a blip on the radar, but Perrotta so deftly writes the character's pain and frustration, that you can't help but have sympathy for him, even through his dramatic teenage gestures and complaints. Perrota writes teenage angst and awkwardness so well that I hope these are stories from a very active imagination and not ones that are developed out of experiences. His characters often do things that are very uncomfortable to read.I was a little disappointed Senior Season was included in this collection, as over the summer, I purchased the story by itself on Amazon. I felt a bit cheated by this. It would have been nice to have been allowed the story for free as a teaser for preordering the book. Instead, I basically bought the story twice.This however, was not enough to make me grumpy over the book. As with all of Perrotta's previous efforts, I throughly enjoyed Nine Inches Stories. I can't wait for Perrotta's next book and I'm also very much looking forward to the HBO Series adaptation of his novel The Leftovers .Damon Lindelof is involved, so that's another reason to get excited! If you've not done so already, make sure to read the book before the series starts airing.Like my review? Check out my blog!

Reviewer: Larry Hoffer
Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Perrotta's stories quickly hook you and make you wish they were longer...
Review: I'd rate this 4.5 stars.I've been a big fan of Tom Perrotta's for some time now. While I love his use of language and his ear for dialogue, I particularly like the way he is able to make his books so compelling when they're not necessarily about a major catastrophe or turning point. Instead, they so accurately capture the everyday moments of everyday lives, and the moment when a character's decision takes them off the rails a bit.All of the stories in Perrotta's new collection, Nine Inches, do a terrific job of capturing those moments. The narrators of these stories are all dealing with something--divorce, the dissolution of relationships, injury, dissatisfaction with their life at the current time. These stories feature familiar characters in situations you can understand or perhaps even identify with, which is what makes them compelling and enjoyable.In The Smile on Happy Chang's Face, a man battling unhappiness and petty inferiority brings his issues along with him when umpiring a Little League championship game. Senior Season tells the story of an injured high school football player unable to cope with his life now that he is no longer playing, and his elderly neighbor provides the cause of some frustration. The narrator of Backrub is stuck in a dead-end job while all of his friends went off to college, and has some interesting encounters with a local policeman. In Kiddie Pool, an elderly man makes some interesting late-night discoveries about his estranged best friend and next-door neighbor. And in the title story (named for the distance that slow-dancing middle school students needed to keep between them), a teacher wonders how his life might have been different if he pursued his true feelings.I really enjoyed nearly all of the 10 stories in this collection (of course, some more than others), and felt like probably all of them could be expanded into full-length novels. With many of the stories, I wanted to know what happened next with the characters after the stories ended. That, to me, is always the mark of truly well-written and interesting stories.If you're a fan of Tom Perrotta's, definitely pick up this collection, as you'll enjoy the familiarity and complexity of his storytelling. And if you've never read any of Perrotta's novels, but are simply a fan of short stories or good writing, pick up this collection, too, because you'll definitely find a lot of the latter.

Reviewer: MCal
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: My personal opinion about the book...
Review: This is my first Perrotta book (won't be my last). I bought the book because I love the films Election & Little Children and wanted to check out his writing. I'm now a fan of his books mainly because it reads like a friend telling you about an interesting story of someone else they know. You just want to hang out with them more and hear more, lol. Kind of like hearing gossip that is captivating and has an entertaining purpose. His style of writing flows very well and the stories are about regular circumstances but yet they offer enough complexity to keep you riveted. It's very easy for anyone to make connections and relate to each story and/or character in some way. Overall, the book was humorous, interesting and at times endearing. I enjoyed it!

Reviewer: Ada Ardor
Rating: 3.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Okay, nothing more
Review: Very memorable characters, and the stories were enjoyable. But I wish Tom Perrotta would follow through with what he started. There isn't any depth to his stories, and he appears to abandon his characters just when their lives turn interesting, because he hasn't figured it out yet either. The stories were all the same in tone, and I didn't have a favorite. One was just ridiculous, specifically The All-Night Party, where the mother befriends the cop who frightened her daughter, though it seems she harbors a slight resentment against her daughter. I wish there were some connection between the characters like in Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout. I had to read this book for book club, and it was exactly as I expected. I read Election, and it was just frivolous filler, so my expectations were low, and unfortunately, met. I don't mind when you write for entertainment but be honest about it. This is kitsch just beautifully wrapped.

Reviewer: Don Logan
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: These are stories with no real beginning or end - a snap shot of the protaginists life. Sometimes concluding with a glimmer of hope but often not. Very honest characterisation, conveying the best and worst of us. A great read and one that will lead to more of Tom Perrotta's work.