Dragon at the Edge of a Flat World: Portraits and Revelations

Joseph Keckler

Joseph Keckler’s signatures are his magnificent three-plus-octave operatic voice and the mesmerizing stories he tells. Combining original pieces with material from his acclaimed performances, Keckler confirms his storytelling mastery, revealing still more of himself on the page.

In these tales, one can’t easily draw a line between reality, embellishment, and fantasy. Odd jobs and odder employers: what is it like to work for a blind man who runs an art gallery? Or for an aging club kid who administers a university classics department? These outré characters make an artful spectacle of daily life. Some strive to be center stage and others struggle to be seen, but all soldier on in the margins. In this world, you may board a familiar bus or train and find yourself in some shady netherworld, or skipping past midnight on New Year’s Eve. There is sex with ghosts. And the incessant GPS voice that mocks the last moments of a longtime love.

A celebration of the ridiculous and a tour through stations of longing, this diverse collection will thrill devotees and new fans alike.

• "Joseph Keckler is a captivating raconteur, with a delicious ability to transform scenes of dread into comedic triumph. His deadpan delivery contrasts brilliantly with his virtuoso appetite for moody glissandi and hectic staccati. I marvel at the social incongruities--the faux pas, the accidental couplings, the identity slippages--that he narratively dishes out as if they were artisanal pizzas, seasoned with a hilarity and drama that add up to box office boffo."―Wayne Koestenbaum


• "Joseph Keckler is a magician, a vagabond of the outer boroughs with an eye for the unorthodox, irregular, anomalous, and uncanny. By turns mordant and melancholy, decadent and delirious, these are stories to cherish, as brilliant and charming as the writer himself."―Olivia Laing