Fiction, Nonfiction

Permanent Exhibit

Matthew Vollmer opens a browser window into his own mind with these collage-style essays. Exercising a rapacious intellectual curiosity, he seamlessly integrates flying snakes, mass shootings, emojis, pop stars, stargazing, ghosts, circuses, and a hundred other things. Full of keen observations and unexpected insights, Permanent Exhibit reclaims the art of letting one’s mind wander and explore in the age of the status update.

Signed copies available in limited quantities

Praise for Matthew Vollmer

"Captivating journeys with a playful, winsome guide." —Kirkus Reviews

"Who else but Matthew Vollmer would travel in status faux-updates from Justin Bieber to embalming fluids, from a presidential execution order to an Amazon order for cutlery? A thrilling, hilarious book about the difference between privacy and publicity, between exhibition and excavation, between ephemera and art (hint: the saving grace of life on earth is human consciousness)." —David Shields

"Becoming conscious of the process by which we are produced may be the only available step to enabling our status as players rather than simply played, though it is no exit from the game itself. And that, to me, is what makes Matthew Vollmer’s fiction compelling at a much deeper level than the play of wit, sensibility, and intelligence in his craft." —The Brooklyn Rail

"Irresistible" —The New York Times

"Vollmer's writing is my new favorite example of what it must be like to see a life flash before your eyes." —Fiction Advocate

FormatPaperback , Paperback (Signed)

Publication DateSeptember 11, 2018

ISBN978-1-942683-68-1

From $17.00

About the Author

Matthew Vollmer was born in Asheville, North Carolina and grew up in the mountains of western North Carolina. A graduate of the University of North Carolina, he attended the Iowa Writers’ Workshop at the University of Iowa. He is the author of two collections of short fiction—Gateway to Paradise (Persea, 2015) and Future Missionaries of America (MacAdam/Cage, 2009; Salt Publishing, 2010)—as well as a collection of essays: inscriptions for headstones (Outpost19, 2012). His work has appeared in Paris Review, Glimmer Train, Tin House, Virginia Quarterly Review, Epoch, Ecotone, New England Review, The Sun, Best American Essays, and The Pushcart Prize Anthology. With David Shields, he co-edited FAKES: An Anthology of Pseudo-Interviews, Faux-Lectures, Quasi-Letters, “Found” Texts, and Other Fraudulent Artifacts (W. W. Norton, 2012), and he served as editor for The Book of Uncommon Prayer, an anthology of everyday invocations featuring the work of over 60 writers. A winner of a 2010 NEA grant for literature, he teaches in the English Department at Virginia Tech, where he is an Associate Professor, and lives in Blacksburg with his wife and son. For more information about Matthew Vollmer, visit matthewvollmer.com.