I Thought My Father Was God: And Other True Tales from Npr's National Story Project

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   NPR（ナショナル・パブリック・ラジオ）のニュース番組「Weekend All Things Considered」との共同企画。現代アメリカ文学の第一人者の選による、NPRの人気番組に寄せられた話をまとめた短篇集。日常のできごとがいかに人の心を打つかを教えてくれる。

   ポール・オースターとNPRの「Weekend All Things Considered」がナショナル・ストーリー・プロジェクトを始めたときの反響はすさまじいものだった。月に一度の番組は好評を博し、応募作品は驚異的な数を記録した。誰にでも何か語ることがある、ということらしかった。

 『I Thought My Father Was God』は、その中から180人の人たちの、実際にあった話をまとめた傑作集だ。それぞれの話は、性別も年齢も、バックグラウンドも、歩んできた人生も異なる人々の身の上に起こったできごとである。しかも、それぞれに42の州の特徴がよく出ている。作品の多くは、日常生活の中の意外なできごとを、簡潔に生き生きと描きだしている。また、暮らしの中の1つのできごとに焦点を絞っているものがほとんどだ。年に1度行われるクー・クラックス・クランのパレードで、メンバーの1人の愛犬が歩道から飛び出し、町中の人の注目が集まるなか、飼い主のマスクをはずしてしまった話のように愉快な話もあれば、オレゴン州ポートランドで、白いニワトリが意図に基づくかのごとく道路を歩き、ポーチの階段をぴょんと上がってドアをノックして、すました顔で家の中に入っていく様子を目撃した女性の話のように、不思議な話もある。

   思わず笑ってしまうような失敗談や、胸が痛くなるような事件、死にそうな目にあった話、奇跡的な出会い、信じられないような皮肉な事件、何かを予感した話、悲痛な話、夢の話など、この本に収録されている話は設定も時代も題材も驚くほど幅広く、めったに見ることのできないようなアメリカ人の心の奥底をのぞかせてくれる。

Product Description

One of America's foremost writers collects the best stories submitted to NPR's National Story Project -- and illuminates the powerful role of storytelling in all our lives.

When Paul Auster was asked to join NPR's Weekend All Things Considered program to tell stories, he turned the proposition on its head: he would let the stories come to him. He invited listeners to submit brief, true-life anecdotes about events that touched their lives.

And so the National Story Project was born. It was one of NPR's most popular features. The response was so overwhelming, with more than 4,000 stories submitted that Auster decided to cull the top works and make them available in a book -- and now this CD collection. His selections -- hilarious blunders, wrenching coincidences, brushes with death, miraculous encounters, improbable ironies -- come from people of all ages and walks of life.

This one-of-a-kind collection is a testament to the power of storytelling that offers a glimpse into the American soul. By turns poignant, nostalgic, funny, and strange, it is an audiobook to be treasured and shared for years to come.

Amazon.com Review

When the call went out to listeners of National Public Radio's Weekend All Things Considered to submit stories about their personal experiences, the results were overwhelming. I Thought My Father Was God: And Other True Tales from NPR's National Story Project contains editor Paul Auster's pick of the best submissions. The stories, whether fact or fiction, all exhibit a heartfelt earnestness to be heard, and share similar themes of bizarre coincidences, otherworldly intervention, love and loss, life-changing experiences, and mundane pleasures. Some are deeply moving, most are not. But it is uplifting and well worth the time to sift through these brief snapshots of our collective human experience.

To give the book shape, Auster has done his best to categorize the material by subject, such as Animals, Families, War, Love, Dreams, and the like. These categories hold true to the submission criteria: "[I was most interested in] stories that defied our expectations about the world, anecdotes that revealed the mysterious and unknowable forces at work in our lives, in our family histories, in our minds and bodies, in our souls.... I was hoping to put together ... a museum of American reality." I Thought My Father Was God is a testament that, despite what on a bad day we may think is a drab existence, we all have a few good stories in us. --Michael Ferch