Couch

--Author appearance at BEA. --Galleys (and a gumball machine!) at BEA and PNBA. --Advance Access --AWP publicity --web sites devoted to the book --competitions for photos of couches in weirdest place --local author readings --local and national ads --Debut novel by a fresh and funny voice in American fiction.

Three guys try to carry a couch across the country."Couch hits on an improbable, even fantastic premise, and then rigorously hews to the logic that it generates, keeping it afloat (at times literally) to the end." -Los Angeles Times "Delightfully lighthearted writing...Occasionally laugh-out-loud funny, the enthusiastic prose carries readers through sporadic dark moments ...Parzybok's quirky humor recalls the flaws and successes of early Douglas Adams."-Publishers Weekly "The book succeeds as a conceptual art piece, a literary travelogue, and a fantastical quest." -Willamette Week "Hundreds of writers have slavishly imitated-or outright ripped off-Tolkien in ways that connoisseurs of other genres would consider shameless. What Parzybok has done here in adapting the same old song to a world more familiar to the reader is to revive the genre and make it relevant again" -The Stranger A Spring Summer Indie Next Reading List Pick: Top 10 Reading Group Suggestions "Couch follows the quirky journey of Thom, Erik, and Tree as they venture into the unknown at the behest of a magical, orange couch, which has its own plan for their previously boring lives. Parzybok's colorful characters, striking humor, and eccentric magical realism offer up an adventuresome read." -Christian Crider, Inkwood Books, Tampa, FL A January 2009 Indie Next List Pick "This funny novel of furniture moving gone awry is a magical realism quest for modern times. Parzybok's touching story explores the aimlessness of our culture, a society of jobs instead of callings, replete with opportunities and choices but without the philosophies and vocations we need to make meaningful decisions." -Josh Cook, Porter Square Books, Cambridge, MA "A lot of people are looking for magic in the world today, but only Benjamin Parzybok thought to check the sofa, which is, I think, the place it's most likely to be found. Couch is a slacker epic: a gentle, funny book that ambles merrily from Coupland to Tolkien, and gives couch-surfing (among other things) a whole new meaning." -Paul La Farge "One of the strangest road novels you'll ever read. It's a funny and fun book, and it's also a very smart book. Fans of Tom Robbins or Christopher Moore should enjoy this." -Handee Books "It is an upholstered Odyssey unlike any other you are likely to read. It is funny,...