{"product_id":"9781421450544-bliss-of-your-attention","title":"The Bliss of Your Attention","description":"\u003cmeta content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\" http-equiv=\"Content-Type\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eStories\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eA powerful story collection that celebrates those who strive and fail and strive again.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWinner of the American Fiction Award ( Short Story Fiction) by the American Book Fest\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIf Joseph Campbell's dictum—\"follow your bliss\"—has become inspiration and goad, accusation and cliché, then the characters in David Borofka's \u003ci\u003eThe Bliss of Your Attention\u003c\/i\u003e are all the more puzzled by what their futures portend. Their bliss is never clear nor independent of others, for the characters in these stories are ever in search of connection, understanding, and validation, even if the latter—unlike reality and cynicism—is in short supply.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAs the narrator of \"Live with It\" tells her would-be novelist husband, \"Learn to live with your disappointments.\" \"I mean,\" she thinks, \"I could give him the party line, you know, follow your bliss, etc., etc., but that's where the disappointments come from, don't they? I mean that's where bliss leads if you're no good at the thing that you think makes you happy.\" Borofka, whose collection \u003ci\u003eA Longing for Impossible Things\u003c\/i\u003e was selected by the American Book Fest as the 2021 winner of the American Fiction Award for the Short Story, masterfully charts the spectrum of human emotion and the difficulty of connection in these pages.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHapless and bumbling though they may be, the characters in \u003ci\u003eThe Bliss of Your Attention\u003c\/i\u003e continue to move forward despite all evidence to the contrary. As novelist Peter Manseau noted, \"The comedy of seeking is rarely so sympathetically portrayed as in Borofka's hands; he captures perfectly the poignancy of dopey mortals dreaming and scheming to reach the divine.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Rarewaves","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":55182515208566,"sku":"9781421450544","price":18.35,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0092\/7504\/8033\/files\/stand_31786246.jpg?v=1737637298","url":"https:\/\/www.rarewaves.com\/products\/9781421450544-bliss-of-your-attention","provider":"Rarewaves.com","version":"1.0","type":"link"}