Patchwork

Tom Comitta returns with a novella that is at once a picaresque quest for a stolen snuffbox and a marvel of literary découpage, equal parts love story, old-fashioned thriller, and absurdist romp.

To whom does a story belong? Who is its author? What is an author? Does it matter? These questions and more populate the subversive and audacious Patchwork, a comical tragedy that highlights the connective tissue that joins stories to themselves as well as to the grand history of storytelling itself. Celebrating the tropes and clichés of classical novels while simultaneously forging them into an original narrative, Patchwork ultimately shows us that the stories produced by hundreds of writers past--celebrated or obscure, reverent or hilarious, factual or fantastical--may, in the hands of a master, become a single, seamless whole.

Author: Tom Comitta
Publisher: Coffee House Press
Published: 08/19/2025
Pages: 200
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.40lbs
Size: 7.40h x 5.50w x 0.70d
ISBN13: 9781566897297
ISBN10: 1566897297
BISAC Categories:
- Fiction | Literary
- Fiction | Adaptations & Pastiche
- Fiction | Classics

About the Author
Tom Comitta is the author of The Nature Book (Coffee House Press) and People's Choice Literature: The Most Wanted and Unwanted Novels (Columbia University Press). Their fiction and essays have appeared in WIRED, Literary Hub, Electric Literature, Los Angeles Review of Books, The Believer, and BOMB. Comitta works as a book designer and lives in Los Angeles with their partner, child, and pooch.