An estranged couple unearth a mysterious artifact in their backyard, setting in motion a series of bewildering events. A lonely software developer takes a position at a shadowy corporation, only to find himself the subject of a new and sinister brand of team training. A window washer mourning the death of a child finds himself confronted with the indelible stains of his own failures. In eighteen uncanny stories, Keith Rondinelli’s subtle and disquieting debut collection charts a dreamlike netherworld of shifting identities, tech-age anxiety, and the alienating effects of consumerism. A General Theory of Tears paints a surreal portrait of an America on the brink. Suggestive of David Lynch, George Saunders, and Steven Millhauser, Rondinelli’s nostalgic, speculative visions announce a significant storytelling talent.
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A General Theory of Tears is an impressive and accomplished debut. Indeed, it’s so accomplished it’s hard to believe it’s a debut. Nimble and balanced and sometimes darkly funny stories that withhold just enough as they circle around loss, familial loss in particular, charting a certain life-shattering damage and its aftermath.
—Brian Evenson, author of The Glassy, Burning Floor of Hell
Here we are with other shoppers trapped in a big-box store for eternity. Or in possession of a ‘thing’ so special it begs description. A nameless boy fills a notebook with words no one on Earth can read. A man falls in love with a park where prescient trees let him know what he needs to know. Rondinelli’s narrative style is a marvel of splendid invention.
—David Ohle, author of The Death of a Character
Rondinelli’s A General Theory of Tears is a marvelously dark alchemy of emotion and observation, formal novelty and unexpected humor. In writing so assured it belies a debut, Rondinelli shows himself to be a significant new literary talent.
—Kurt Baumeister, author of Pax Americana
