I Thought My Father Was God

📘 About This Book

One of America's foremost writers collects the best stories submitted to NPR's popular monthly show—and illuminates the powerful role storytelling plays in all our lives. When Paul Auster and NPR's Weekend All Things Considered introduced The National Story Project, the response was overwhelming. Not only was the monthly show a critical success, but the volume of submissions was astounding. Letters, emails, faxes poured in on a daily basis—more than 4,000 of them by the time the project celebrated its first birthday. Everyone, it seemed, had a story to tell. I Thought My Father Was God gathers 180 of these personal, true-life accounts in a single, powerful volume. They come from people of all ages, backgrounds, and walks of life. Half of the contributors are men; half are women. They live in cities, suburbs, and rural areas, and they come from 42 different states. Most of the stories are short, vivid bits of narrative, combining the ordinary and the extraordinary, and most describe a single incident in the writer's life. Some are funny, some are mysterious, like the story of a woman who watched a white chicken walk purposefully down a street in Portland, Oregon, hop up some porch steps, knock on the door—and calmly enter the house. Many involve the closing of a loop, like the one about the woman who lost her mother's ashes in a burglary and recovered them five years later from the mortuary of a local church. Hilarious blunders, wrenching coincidences, brushes with death, miraculous encounters, improbable ironies, premonitions, sorrows, pains, dreams—this singular collection encompasses an extraordinary range of settings, time periods, and subjects. A testament to the important role storytelling plays in all our lives, I Thought My Father Was God offers a rare glimpse into the American soul.

📖 Summary

I Thought My Father Was God, edited by acclaimed American writer Paul Auster, brings together one hundred and eighty true-life personal accounts submitted to the National Story Project on NPR's Weekend All Things Considered. When Auster and the radio program invited listeners to share real stories from their lives, the public response was massive, resulting in over four thousand submissions by the project's first anniversary. The resulting volume captures a diverse cross-section of the American populace, featuring contributions split evenly between men and women of various ages, backgrounds, and walks of life. Rather than relying on professional writers, the collection relies on everyday people telling true stories about moments that left an indelible mark on their memories. The book illuminates the powerful, fundamental role that storytelling plays in all of our lives, serving as a testament to the fact that everyone has a narrative worth sharing. Through these pages, readers encounter experiences that range from the deeply poignant to the strangely surreal, offering a profound look at human nature, memory, and connection. Auster's curation highlights the extraordinary nature of ordinary lives, proving that truth is often stranger, funnier, and more moving than fiction. Each vignette functions as a small window into another person's world, reminding us of the shared threads that connect disparate human experiences across the country. The collection as a whole acts as a democratic portrait of society, capturing the humor, tragedy, absurdity, and beauty of everyday existence. By gathering these voices, Auster champions the idea that narrative is a basic human impulse, essential for making sense of the world around us. Readers of this literary collection are treated to a mosaic of real-life encounters that defy simple categorization, celebrating the richness of human memory and the enduring power of the spoken and written word.

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