by David Amsden
“I quit years ago.”
“You did?”
“Right around the time I lost the moustache.”
“Oh,” I said. It hit me then that there were a lot of things like this, small bits of information I didn’t know. Insignificant maybe, but I wanted to know them anyway. But I knew it would take a while.
So we walked to his car now, stumbled is more like it, and said good-bye. He said we should stay in better touch, or maybe I said it. It didn’t matter. He had a minivan, of all things, a used one that he’d fixed up. I wasn’t too concerned about Dad’s driving home. He was drunk as hell, I know, but I wasn’t worried still. And not just because I figured he’d been driving drunk for years, was probably a genius at it. It’s that Dad just isn’t the type of person who ends up having one too many, getting in a car, and swerving into the median and dying. Dad’s not the type to put himself through the windshield. It’s simple. I know I’m the same way, maybe even more so. Some people can get away with pretty much anything, and not end up through a windshield. It’s hard to explain. I mean, I guess you could call this good luck. But only if you really wanted to.
Exponential Thanks
Christiana Sadigianis, Rachel Hartford, Mike Johns, Sarah Wells, Jess Perlmeter, Joanna Coles, Sara Stewart, Monica Khemsurov, Jennifer Hershey, Claire Greenspan, Sarah Durand, Melanie Jackson, Bridget Klapinski, Mom (infinitely), and Dad (last but far from least).
About the Author
While a student in New York, DAVID AMSDEN worked for The New Yorker and New York magazine, where he is now a contributing writer. His fiction and nonfiction have appeared in The Believer, Black Book, and Nerve, among other publications. Important Things That Don’t Matter, his first novel, was chosen as a 2003 debut to watch by Publishers Weekly and Interview. He lives in Brooklyn.
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PRAISE FOR
Important Things That Don’t Matter
“You’ve got to hate this guy. He’s already been called the voice of his generation.”
—New York Times
“What’s startling here, aside from the fact that Important Things That Don’t Matter actually seems to matter, is that the frames of reference for Amsden and his unnamed narrator are so refreshingly un-Generation X.”
—Los Angeles Times
“Really, really great! It’s that swell combination I so dig: close-to-the-nerve honesty and severe suffering intertwined with that leavening cynical humor. But just remember, dude, before you get on your high-lit-world horse: You may be a month older than me, but I can still kick your ass!”
—J. T. LEROY, author of Sarah
“This book is a complete winner. Smart, charming, fresh, compelling—Amsden is a writer with enormous talent.”
—BILL BUFORD, author of Among the Thugs
“This kid has more insight into himself, into the raw inner terrain that defines much of his generation, than most writers three times his age. Nothing short of phenomenal! Where did this little Nabokov come from? You must read this damn book immediately!”
—NICK FOWLER, author of
A Thing (or Two) About Curtis and Camilla
“Absorbing…. A daring narrative that resonates with the heartbreaking emotion that lurks between Amsden’s sharply written lines.”
—BookPage
“Conversational and tough, the novel’s observant narrator is bound to captivate readers.”
—Booklist
“The narrator’s voice is a likable mixture of bewilderment and tentative black humor, and some of the scenes…are well cast and darkly ironic.”
—Publishers Weekly
“David Amsden has created a raw, hilarious, and heartbreaking protagonist. He’s given a voice to the boy in the corner, someone who could have been destroyed by the divorce of his parents and a whirlwind of change, but manages to survive. There are moments of literary brilliance in this story that will dazzle the reader.”
—JOHN SEARLES, author of Boy Still Missing
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
IMPORTANT THINGS THAT DON’T MATTER. Copyright © 2003 by David Amsden. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub Edition © AUGUST 2007 ISBN: 9780061882104
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