Creative Types

And Other Stories

By: Tom Bissell

Narrated by: Trisha Miller, Kasey Mahaffy

Length: 6 hrs and 15 mins

Publisher's summary

From the best-selling coauthor of The Disaster Artist and “one of America's best and most interesting writers" (Stephen King), a new collection of stories that range from laugh-out-loud funny to disturbingly dark — unflinching portraits of women and men struggling to bridge the gap between art and life

A young and ingratiating assistant to a movie star makes a blunder that puts his boss and a major studio at grave risk. A long-married couple hires an escort for a threesome in order to rejuvenate their relationship. An assistant at a prestigious literary journal reconnects with a middle school frenemy and finds that his carefully constructed world of refinement cannot protect him from his past. A Bush administration lawyer wakes up on an abandoned airplane, trapped in a nightmare of his own making.

In these and other stories, Tom Bissell vividly renders the complex worlds of characters on the brink of artistic and personal crises — writers, video game developers, actors, and other creative types who see things slightly differently from the rest of us. With its surreal, poignant, and sometimes squirm-inducing stories, Creative Types is a brilliant new offering from one the most versatile and talented writers working in America today.

©2020 Tom Bissell (P)2020 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

A New York Times December Book to Read

A Los Angeles Times December Book to Read

An Inside Hook Best Book of December

“The seven stories in Bissell’s droll, thoughtful collection...portray artistic people in the midst of unfortunate circumstances, often due to their own actions.... Each story demonstrates Bissell’s talent for smooth, sparkling prose, arresting descriptions...and vivid characterization. Desperate, downtrodden, and self-absorbed, the protagonists are thoroughly human, and Bissell consistently transforms the reader’s voyeuristic pleasure into unexpected sympathy.” (Publishers Weekly)

"It’s like Deborah Eisenberg and Bruce Chatwin had a secret love child and instead of raising him, they gave him away to Ubisoft in an experiment to see if gamers can be turned back into readers. Bissell pulls off the what should be impossible - illuminating all the modern silences and somehow rendering them laugh-out-loud funny. You won’t find more memorable 'lovers' or better dialogue anywhere. Buy this book and learn how to write." (Stephen Gaghan, writer and director of Syriana)

"This buzzing collection brings together seven stories that showcase [Bissell's] gift for energetic storytelling, each tale imbued with humor and relevant cultural references.... Bissell's affinity for fast pacing and quick wit will reward readers looking for an antidote to the doldrums of life under quarantine." (Booklist)

Wanting to Know More

Many of the characters in the short stories in “Creative Types“ are a little self-centered, a little self-important and a little lost. But they are all intriguing, and as each story ended, I wanted to know more about them. What happened next? Many of the characters could have centered a good novel. I liked the publisher’s assistant in “Punishment,” who hosts his now-wealthy high school buddy in Manhattan and regrets the old days, when they brutally bullied weaker boys in their midwestern town. I liked the Estonian girl with the vicious dog in “Love Story, with Cocaine,” whose relationship issues aren’t nearly as bad as those of the boyfriend who seemed, to me, to be modeled after the author. And I liked the personal assistant to a famous actor (well, it’s James Franco) dealing with studio censorship of his monologue for Saturday Night Live. All the stories were original and clever. Tom Bissell is a strong, colorful writer with some great imagery. I hope he writes a novel someday.