about the book
For years, the Hungates and the Harrisons have coexisted peacefully. But when the patriarch of one family dies, a chain reaction brings Bad Habits, Secrets, and Vulnerabilities to the surface. The survivors face a stark imperative: adapt or face extinction.
A Field Guide to the North American Family, an illustrated novella by Garth Risk Hallberg, tracks these two families through the wilderness of modern life. Their stories unfold in 63 entries, each comprising a chapter of text and a visual artist’s response to the entry’s title: Adolescence, Boredom, Chemistry…. The novella can be read straight through; alphabetical headings and cross-referenced design also enable users to peruse the Field Guide as they would a nonfiction reference work, or to move through the fiction as they see fit.
The website, afieldguide.com, invites visitors to document their own encounters with the North American Family. The book’s 63 photographs were selected from over 700 images uploaded to the website in the spring of 2007. Those images, and all that follow, will form the basis of an ongoing, open-ended web resource.
Garth Risk Hallberg, 28, lives and writes in Brooklyn. His short stories stories have appeared in Best New American Voices 2008 (Harcourt/Harvest Books), Glimmer Train, Canteen, Evergreen Review, pindeldyboz, and h2so4, among others. His essays have appeared, most recently, in The Quarterly Conversation and Hermanocerdo. A former departmental fellow at NYU’s M.F.A. program, he covers books for The Millions and teaches at Hofstra University.