The Theory of Everything (Electric Literature's Recommended Reading)

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“The narrator for “The Theory of Everything” is at once sympathetic and selfish, able to get at the truth and unwilling to see the larger picture, a rescuer and a meddler. He is as complex and contradictory as any of us, and his actions lead to a final moment of stunning moral complexity. This is the kind of story that becomes a secret rider, and you don’t know that you’ve been carrying it around until late one night you find yourself recalling your own shameful victory in some long ago struggle.” - Robert Boswell

About the Author: Steven Schwartz is the author of the novels Therapy and A Good Doctor’s Son, and four collections of stories, including the just published Madagascar: New and Selected Stories. A two-time recipient of the Colorado Book Award for Literary Fiction, he has received the Nelson Algren Award, the Cohen Award from Ploughshares, the Sherwood Anderson Prize, two O. Henry Prize Story Awards, and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship. He teaches in the Warren Wilson MFA Program for Writers and is Professor Emeritus of English at Colorado State University, where he is fiction editor for Colorado Review. StevenSchwartzbooks.com

About the Guest Editor: Robert Boswell has published seven novels, three story collections, and two books of nonfiction. He has had two plays produced. His work has earned him two National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Iowa School of Letters Award for Fiction, a Lila Wallace/Woodrow Wilson Fellowship, the PEN West Award for Fiction, the John Gassner Prize for Playwriting, and the Evil Companions Award. The Heyday of the Insensitive Bastards was a finalist for the 2010 PEN USA Award in Fiction. What Men Call Treasure was a finalist for the Western Writers of America Nonfiction Spur Award. Both the Chicago Tribune and Publisher’s Weekly named Mystery Ride as one of the best books of the year. The London Independent picked The Geography of Desire as one of the best books of the year. Virtual Death was a finalist for the Philip K. Dick Award and was named by the Science Fiction Chronicle as one of the best novels of the year. Boswell has published more than 70 stories and essays. They have appeared in the New Yorker, Best American Short Stories, O. Henry Prize Stories, Pushcart Prize Stories, Esquire, Colorado Review, Epoch, Ploughshares, and many other magazines and anthologies. He holds the Cullen Endowed Chair in Creative Writing at the University of Houston. He lives in Houston, Texas; Las Cruces, New Mexico; and Telluride, Colorado. He also spends time in a ghost town high in the Rockies.

About the Publisher: Recommended Reading is the weekly fiction magazine of Electric Literature, publishing here every Wednesday morning. In addition to featuring our own recommendations of original, previously unpublished fiction, we invite established authors, indie presses, and literary magazines to recommend great work from their pages, past and present. Follow Recommended Reading on Medium and never miss the latest issue, or become a member for full access to the archives. For other links from Electric Literature, follow us, or sign up for our eNewsletter.