Available November 13th. Preorder now:

Really, Really
Funny

Manuel Gonzales

author of The Miniature Wife and Other Stories

Highly
Original

Profoundly
Moving

Erin Slaughter

author of A Manual for How to Love Us

Deeply
Entertaining

From the first woman to the last man, ANY TIME BUT THIS TIME is a story collection about what it means to be alive.

Winner of the Grace Paley Prize

The stories of Adam Peterson’s funny, daring, and deliciously outrageous debut ANY TIME BUT THIS TIME span our history and confront our future. From the first woman on Earth grieving among the Neanderthals, to the last man alive nursing the dying flame of love, this collection moves across human history and geography to reveal us at our best and lament our worst. Jesus declares himself a superhero. Lost sailors launch an ill-fated attempt to colonize medieval England. A young woman fights to commandeer the founding of America. A pioneer’s wife satisfies her endless sexual appetite in barren Nebraska. Children hurtle into space to confront alien life—even though they really, really just want love. For fans of George Saunders and Kelly Link, these voices, unbound by time and undaunted by consequence, show us that there are truly no limits to what a short story—so long as it centers our relentless human heart—can do.

Praise

The stories in Adam Peterson's ANY TIME BUT THIS TIME are funny, but, like, really, really funny, but like, the kind of funny that make you laugh and laugh and then make you question your own soul, or whether you even have a soul, because Adam Peterson has slyly tricked you into laughing at some of the worst possible things, the most terrible of people, the most dire of situations. This is a fabulous, unrelenting collection of stories, full of gorgeous, punchy, compulsively readable prose. Do yourself a favor: pick it up, take it home, and start reading.

As history tends to shave off the weird bumps and ridges of our past, it’s exhilarating and unsteadying to read a collection that ambitiously seeks to provide a kind of bizarro reimagining of our world. ANY TIME BUT THIS TIME is odd and hilarious and yet so tenderly human, so unafraid of cataloging all the strange desires and cruelties and moments of true connection that have somehow gotten us to this moment in time, and then it rockets beyond that to imagine an even stranger future. This is wildness of the highest order, unforgettable and highly original.

Deeply entertaining, the stories in this collection crackle with the spark of imagination, invention, and compassion. Peterson writes with a satisfying blend of humor and pathos, fearless in both wit and empathy. For lovers of George Saunders and Haruki Murakami, with a dash of Aimee Bender, this collection also feels somehow entirely fresh.

Peterson’s voice carries an almost prophetic weight, masterfully balancing the lyrical, existential, heartbreaking, and humorous with a skill and style akin to writers like George Saunders and Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah. From the first cave woman to identify as human, to the unraveling of language as our species dies off, I was enraptured by this book, and felt genuinely changed after reading it.

Stories

Denise, or: The First Woman on Earth

The only woman on Earth struggles to keep the spark of human consciousness alive among the neanderthals.

Jesus Does a Hero

An adolescent Jesus Christ decides a more effective use of his omnipotence is to become a superhero.

The Distance 983

Sailors discover a new land and begin to colonize its inferior people: the English.

And Who Shall Rule This Land of Freedom

As the American Revolution looms, a young woman sneaks into a meeting of wealthy colonists seeking to have her say in the country’s future.

A Prairie Romance

A pioneer wife finds difficulty getting sexual satisfaction in a mostly empty Nebraska Territory.

Self-Portrait as Greatest Generation

The author does his best to avoid fighting during the outbreak of WW2 in North Africa.

The Distance 1983

In 1980s Shanghai, a fiery American saleswoman finds romance in China.

ANGELUS

A spokesperson for a government is given a strange child from an enemy land.

All We Must Destroy, All We Must Save

Traveling through space to face an alien threat, a group of child soldiers grow up, fall in love, and regret their life choices.

Keith, or: The Last Man on Earth

The last man on Earth wanders the ruined planet, trying to remember the love of his life.

Stats

Love

Tears/Pain/Ouch

Sex etc.

Heart/Yes

One and The Ones

Beautiful/Lovely/Truth

God or Devil

Bears

Events

Author

Adam Peterson is a writer and filmmaker living in Los Angeles.

This Guy This Guy

Playlist

A series of songs that, well, didn’t inspire the collection in most cases but sure make me think of it.

AVAILABLE 11.13.26

Pre-order now: