Falling While Sitting Down: Stories

Reached #1 on Amazon’s Bestselling Short Stories List 

“Herculean debut. . . . Reality never lies—this book is a stone cold classic.”

 —1500Club

Purchase — $0.99

Available exclusively on on Amazon.

Don’t own a Kindle? No problem! Kindle books can be read using the Free Kindle Reader App for your Web Browser, PC, Mac, iPhone, iPad, BlackBerry, or Android.

Why I’m Charging $0.99 for this Book

Considering the amount of work I put into these stories, I’d honestly feel comfortable charging $10 or $20 for this book. But I’m far more concerned with allowing you to read the stories than making a ton of money from this collection.

Thus, I priced Falling While Sitting Down: Stories at $0.99. All I ask for in exchange is a review on Amazon if you enjoy the book.

Background: Pursuing My Passion

Writing and reading literary fiction has been my passion for a long time. I’ve worked incredibly hard this year writing the best fiction of my life—I’ve never worked harder on anything in my life.

This book is is deliberately short (about 25,000 words). Its seven stories can be read in just a few sittings (or one story at a time if you prefer). Although this collection is short, it is filled with meaningful content.

About the Book

What does it mean to be human? How does a person find meaning in his or her life?

This collection is much more than a few simple stories. It’s about what it means to be a human being in incredibly complex times; it’s about dealing with loneliness and discontent while balancing hope and despair; it’s about trying to escape a past that won’t go away; it’s about finding meaning in one’s life. Ultimately, it’s about trying to keep it together while life is falling apart.

The first four stories in this collection, written by Joshua Fields Millburn, discuss the struggles we face as we attempt to discover the meaning of our lives.

In “It’s All So Quiet in Brooklyn”—this collection’s longest piece—we watch a young but aging musician as he approaches thirty and finds himself coping with loneliness and depression in the aftermath of several life-changing events. He feels utterly alone, so he leaves Ohio to search for meaning in the most unlikely place: Bed-Stuy Brooklyn.

“A Radically Attenuated History of Generation X” is, as the title suggests, an incredibly short story that attempts to summarize a particular ethos for an entire generation through the eyes of two characters on a dinner date.

The title story, “Falling While Sitting Down,” follows an unnamed boy through eighteen years of growing up in an extraordinarily dysfunctional family, showing the emotional muscles it takes to survive such circumstances.

The collection’s final story, “The Loneliest Man,” considers the loneliness and real-life costs of poor relationship decisions from the point of view of a particularly troubled man.

Three Bonus Stories by Three Talented Young Writers

As a bonus, three talented young writers—Colin Wright, Chase Night, and Mark D. Robertson—contributed to this collection, expanding the narrative beyond the scope of Joshua Fields Millburn’s four stories.

“The Beam,” by Colin Wright, tells the story of a sentient airport ceiling beam as it experiences self-doubt for the first time after an interaction with a man who’s struggling to find meaning in his life and intentions.

“When I Open My Eyes,” by Chase Night, follows twenty-something Rafe Bradley as he wrestles with apathy and anger after a West Village gypsy woman tugs on a string that unravels his life.

“Up North,” by Mark D. Robertson, is a short exploration of magical realism in South America. The story explores the way a mysterious canine illuminates in a depressed developing town in the northwest Andean mountains.

The seven stories in this collection vary drastically, but they all share one thing in common: each story is about what it’s like to be a human being during incredibly complex times.

Reviews

“Reminds me of David Foster Wallace’s work. These are lonely, broken characters, and they are all looking for something to make them whole.”

—Patrick McCord (Kentucky)

Falling While Sitting Down: Stories has received exceptional praise from readers and reviewers. If you enjoy it, I’d appreciate a review on Amazon.

Purchase — $0.99

Available exclusively on on Amazon.

Don’t own a Kindle? No problem! Kindle books can be read using the Free Kindle Reader App for your Web Browser, PC, Mac, iPhone, iPad, BlackBerry, or Android.

And if you want a PDF or ePub version, you can email us your Amazon receipt and we’ll send you the PDF or ePub files for free (N.B. we need the Amazon receipt to provide you with an alternate version).

If you’re in a country where you can’t yet purchase books from Amazon’s Kindle store, please email us, and we’ll send you to special page to purchase the PDF or ePub versions.