Degas at the Gas Station

In his latest essay collection, Thomas Beller trains his piercing literary eye on how a single, seismic event indelibly shapes the trajectory of the common and mundane experiences of one’s life. Weaving together a charming set of autobiographical stories, Beller interrogates the randomness and contingencies that separate sadness from joy, death from life. His father escaped the Nazis, only to die in America from cancer when Beller was nine years old. Beller measures how his loss impacted his life as the father of two young children and became a catalyst for understanding an ever-present sorrow. At the same time, ordinary moments—from retrieving an iPod from the subway tracks or encountering the police at a Kinks concert to observing his young tutued ballerina daughter at a gas station—lead to instances of penetrating insight, self-deprecation, and flashes of humor. Degas at the Gas Station presents an endearing and bracingly honest portrait of the author as an ever-curious observer of the mysteries and profundities of everyday life.