A Terrifying Brush with Optimism: New and Selected Stories

A collection of new and selected works from Lambda Literary Award and Asian-American Literary Award winner Brian Leung.

In a cultural moment where folks are stripped of the their dignity or shed it willingly, the figures in this book wonder at the utility of maintaining their own. There’s a touch of Hamlet’s question in there along with some I Ching. Can monkeys pray? Are we better off living in the real world or a speculative one?

Through an essay, a novella, and short and flash fiction pieces, A Terrifying Brush with Optimism is at once leaping, thoughtful, diverse, comic, and brooding.

Brian Leung, author of All I Should Not Tell, Ivy vs. Dogg: With a Cast of Thousands!, World Famous Love Acts, Lost Men, and Take Me Home, is a past recipient of the Lambda Literary Outstanding Mid-Career Prize. Other honors include the Asian-American Literary Award, Willa Award, and the Mary McCarthy Prize in Short Fiction. Brian’s fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry have appeared widely in outlets like Gulf Coast, Story, The Barcelona Review, Crab Orchard Review, Indiana Review, and elsewhere. He is a professor at Purdue University.