Discount

Set in the American Southwest, forty miles north of Juárez, Casey Gray’s ambitious, tragicomic, and ultimately redemptive novel follows a group of customers and employees through the twenty-four hour work cycle as they seek comfort and sustenance inside of the cinderblock walls of a classic American institution—The Superstore.On the eve of the company president’s visit to the store, a manager’s drunk text to a coworker leads to a series of consequences as brutal as they are wide-ranging: Everyone around him will be affected. With a cast of characters featuring Ernesto, a local gang member struggling to choose a job pushing carts over a desultory life as a drug dealer; Wilma, a grandmother working double shifts to support her family; and Keith, a high school student with a penchant for filmmaking, Gray offers a startlingly humane, utterly contemporary portrait of life on the suburban fringe. A vision of an America barely getting by and assaulted by crime, corruption, and exploitation in all of its manifestations, Discount is nevertheless a triumphant and big-hearted novel that marks the arrival of a new voice we won’t soon forget.

About the Author :
Casey Gray teaches English at New Mexico State University. His work has appeared in Ploughshares. Discount is his first novel.

Review :
"Fans of Jonathan Franzen and T. C. Boyle, Sam Lipsyte and Jonathan Tropper will flock to Gray s heartysatire of rampant consumerism and corporate arrogance." "Booklist "(starred review) In "Discount," Casey Gray uses the American phenomenon of the superstore as Nathanael West used Hollywood in "Day of the Locust "but also as Ken Kesey used the psychiatric hospital in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo s Nest "and even as Upton Sinclair used meatpacking industry in "The Jungle" it is metaphor and microcosm, a source of satire and of social commentary. Which is to say, "Discount" is a big, bold, ambitious novel that takes on just about everything suspect in the culture and shirks nothing. With this novel, Casey Gray leaps into the American literary landscape as an author who cannot be ignored. --Robert Boswell, author of "Tumbledown," "Mystery Ride," "Crooked Hearts," and "Century s Son" This novel takes as its magnificent social subject the world of the mega-store, a book as relevant to our contemporary lives as Middlemarch was to a different society. It is by turns hilarious and heartbreaking, personal and political, and all in the very best ways. I love this novel. Its news is vital. Antonya Nelson, author of "Funny Once "In""DISCOUNT," "Casey Gray uses the American phenomenon of the superstore as Nathanael West used Hollywood inDay of the Locustbut also as Ken Kesey used the psychiatric hospital inOne FlewOver the Cuckoo s Nestand even as Upton Sinclair used meatpacking industry inThe Jungle: it is metaphor and microcosm, a source of satire and of social commentary. Which is to say, Discountis a big, bold, ambitious novel that takes on just about everything suspect in the culture and shirks nothing. With this novel, Casey Gray leaps into the American literary landscape as an author who cannot be ignored. --Robert Boswell, author of"Tumbledown, Mystery Ride, Crooked Hearts, andCentury s Son " " "Sure, we all shop at the giant box stores. But do we know what goes on, when we roll our over-loaded carts out to the car and drive away? Behind the scenes, in the homes and lives and hearts of its leaders and employees? Casey Gray knows. This novel takes as its magnificent social subject the world of the mega-store, a book as relevant to our contemporary lives asMiddlemarchwas to a different society. It is by turns hilarious and heartbreaking, personal and political, and all in the very best ways. I love this novel. Its news is vital. Antonya Nelson, author of"Funny Once" Casey Gray has delivered the Superstore novel that our age requires.Unsentimental but huge-hearted, "DISCOUNTi"sconcerned onlywith literature s bottom line honesty and empathy. Chris Bachelder, author of"U.S.!, Lessons in Virtual Tour Photography, andBear v. Shark" "" "Casey Gray is as aware of the complex intricacies of people's lives as corporate America is unaware. His empathy is large, his language unsparing, his canvas both simultaneously small (just the one store) and enormous (all the lives contained in this one store.) In the delicate layering of his characters' lives, this book is an Altman film. As a writer, Gray combines a complex vision of the wide heart of America with an eye for all the things that are constantly wounding it." David MacLean, author of"The Answer to the Riddle Is Me " """ "In "Discount," Casey Gray uses the American phenomenon of the superstore as Nathanael West used Hollywood in "Day of the Locust "but also as Ken Kesey used the psychiatric hospital in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest "and even as Upton Sinclair used meatpacking industry in "The Jungle" it is metaphor and microcosm, a source of satire and of social commentary. Which is to say, "Discount" is a big, bold, ambitious novel that takes on just about everything suspect in the culture and shirks nothing. With this novel, Casey Gray leaps into the American literary landscape as an author who cannot be ignored."--Robert Boswell, author of "Tumbledown," "Mystery Ride," "Crooked Hearts," and "Century's Son" "This novel takes as its magnificent social subject the world of the mega-store, a book as relevant to our contemporary lives as Middlemarch was to a different society. It is by turns hilarious and heartbreaking, personal and political, and all in the very best ways. I love this novel. Its news is vital."--Antonya Nelson, author of "Funny Once"