Personal Days

By Ed Park

(Random House Trade Paperbacks, 2008)

Personal Days, a debut novel by Ed Park, adjunct instructor at the Gallatin School of Individualized Study, focuses on a Manhattan office in the midst of an aggressive and mysterious downsizing. Its narrators—employing inside jokes and nicknames—are workers who witness fellow employees being laid off all around them.     
    Newsweek called it “a lyrical and often piercing look at daily life,” the Los Angeles Times likened Park’s work to that of Joseph Heller and Kurt Vonnegut, and Mark Sarvas wrote in the New York Times Book Review: “Witty and appealing...Park has written what one of his characters calls ‘a layoff narrative’ for our times. As the economy continues its free fall, Park’s book may serve as a handy guide for navigating unemployment and uncertainty.”
    Park, who teaches creative writing at Gallatin, is a founding coeditor of The Believer magazine, a contributing editor for Modern Painters, and an associate editor at poetryfoundation.org.