Yale law student Adam Haslett meant the title of his recent short story collection, You Are Not a Stranger Here, to be inviting to potential readers, but he never anticipated that the book - his first - would arouse international interest.
He was, likewise, completely shocked when a call came recently from the director of The National Book Foundation notifying him that You Are Not a Stranger Here was selected as one of five finalists in the fiction category for the prestigious National Book Award.
You Are Not a Stranger Here has earned critical acclaim and widespread media attention, including front-page articles in the book sections of The New York Times and The Boston Globe, among other major publications. NBC's "The Today Show" stirred further interest in the book when it showcased Haslett as part of its new Book Club segment.
Haslett began writing the nine tales in You Are Not a Stranger Here around 1998, about the same time he applied to law school. He deferred his admission to Yale when he received a fellowship to spend a year at the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center. He later chose to defer admission, this time for two years, to attend the Iowa Writers' Workshop on a fellowship. By then, Haslett says he was "ready for law school."
During his second semester at Yale, however, he received the news that ultimately launched his literary career. An editor at Doubleday had read one of Haslett's stories in the magazine Zoetrope: All Story and offered to publish a collection of his works.
Seeing his book catapult into the limelight has given Haslett "some wonderful months," he says, but he's glad he can sometimes retreat to the academic world of the law school, where he is pursuing his interests in criminal and appellate law and legal theory. He describes law and writing as appealing to opposite sides of his brain, and says that each activity is a "respite" from the other.
Excerpts from an article by Susan Gonzalez
