Place Published: Braddock, PA
Publisher: Braddock Avenue Books
Date Published: July 2022
ISBN: 9798985725612

Synopsis:

Praise for Sounds of the Night

“Sounds of the Night is perfectly titled and perfectly shaped, a work of prose fiction that incorporates true poetry. William Lychack shows both range and depth; he traverses astonishing landscapes, from “The Devil's Slide” of the Portland Cement Company to the floor-mat of a dojo, from Greenpoint to Vienna to Myanmar, and always with a black-belt's poise. But the true landscape here described is that of the author's own heart.”
—Nicholas Delbanco, author of What Remains and Why Writing Matters

“In William Lychack’s hands, moments can expand and echo through generations, and years can pass in a moment. He finds the music of streetscapes, of quiet cars, of lost homes and future hopes. One of the stories in Sounds of the Night takes us to Myanmar, to a vendor with cages “ripe with birds,” where for a few cents “you can release one of these sparrows in a kind of prayer.” The main character is compelled to purchase one, but then can’t quite let go: he clutches the bird, feeling “the tiny racing of heart against your fingers.” The birds reminded me of these stories, light on their wings but dense with life, tiny racing hearts in our hands.” 
--Caitlin Horrocks, author of The Vexations and Life Among the Terranauts

 “Like Darwin who opens the belly of a grey heron to find the hard white pearl of a lotus berry, Lychack opens the stories we tell and are told to find the seeds of new understanding. The stories in this luminous collection do not lie still. They are alive with the longing and pain that come with revisiting our past, but also the release and beauty that can be found in the reframing of our present.” 
--Hester Kaplan, author of The Tell and Kinship Theory

"A shimmering collage of stories by turns poetic and playful, but most of all beautiful. I'd say "breath-takingly" beautiful, but these stories seem almost "breath-giving," reminding us of our own breathing, and what it means to be alive. Filled with "tenderness towards existence," they're proof that beauty is woven inextricably with love."
--Peter Ho Davies, author of A Lie Someone Told You About Yourself

Autor Bio

In addition to this new story collection, Sounds of the Night, William Lychack is the author of six previous books: Cargill Falls (a novel), The Wasp Eater (a novel), The Architect of Flowers (stories), a cultural history of cement, and two titles for children. His work has appeared in Conjunctions, Ploughshares, The Southern Review, The American Scholar, Story Magazine, and elsewhere, including The Best American Short Stories, The Pushcart Prize, and on public radio’s This American Life. He has received a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, a Christopher Isherwood Foundation Award, a Sherwood Anderson Award, and has been a Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Writers Selection. He lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, with his wife and three children, and teaches at the University of Pittsburgh. 

More can be found at www.lychack.com.