ABOUT THE BOOK

Is our knowledge of the world finite? Or are there places yet to be discovered?

These fourteen stories from acclaimed writer Robert Freeman Wexler take place on the ragged border between conscious and subconscious, reality and dream. They conjure. They contradict. They haunt. They disturb. There’s also humor. Undiscovered Territories, Wexler’s first full-length short story collection and first book since his 2009 novel, The Painting and the City, is a career-spanning assemblage, including previously published fiction like the highly-praised novella “In Springdale Town” as well as new material.

The paraphernalia of the fantastic—a four-armed man; solidified clouds; the fascinating world of sentient bread—is but one aspect of these stories, which puzzle, entertain, and startle. In works that range from the streets of Manhattan to the top of a newly-formed mountain in a totalitarian country, Undiscovered Territories reveals a writer Lucius Shepard described as “remarkable and highly original” and “Fucking good!”

CONTENTS

• tales of the golden legend
• suspension
• indifference
• the secret bag
• the baker
• the green wall

Part Two: IN THE UNDISCOVERED TERRITORY

• travels along an unfurling circular path
• sidewalk factory: a municipal romance
• mountain story
• valley of the falling clouds

Part Three IN THE UNDISCOVERED SMALL TOWN

• in springdale town
• darkness, and darkness
• new neighbors
• springdale longitude and latitude
• acknowledgments and story notes