The World of Pondside

by Mary Helen Stefaniak

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Pub Date Apr 19 2022 | Archive Date Jun 22 2022

Blackstone Publishing

General Fiction (Adult) | Literary Fiction | Mystery & Thrillers

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Description

*One of Crime Reads' 10 New Novels You Should Read in April*

*One of Publishers Weekly's Most Anticipated Thrillers of Spring*

*An Amazon Editors' Pick: Best Mystery, Thriller & Suspense*

With help from Pondside Manor’s quirky, twentysomething kitchen worker Foster Kresowik, wheelchair-bound resident Robert Kallman creates The World of Pondside, a video game that delights the nursing home’s residents by allowing them to virtually relive blissful moments from days long past—or even create new ones.

One-legged Duane Lotspeich is overjoyed when he can dance the tango again. Octogenarian Laverne Slatchek cheers on her favorite baseball team from the stands at Candlestick Park with her beloved husband—who died years ago. Even the overwhelmed Pondside administrator escapes her job by logging into a much more luxurious virtual world.

Robert’s game enlivens the halls of Pondside Manor, but chaos ensues when he is found dead, submerged in the pond, still strapped into his wheelchair. If any resident witnessed his death, they’re not telling—either covering up or, quite possibly, forgetting. And it’s far from clear to anyone—including the police—if the death of this brilliant man, who suffered from ALS, was suicide or murder.

When Robert’s video game goes dark, its players grow desperate. The task of getting it back online falls to young Foster, who enlists help from a raucous group of residents and staff. Their pursuit—virtual and real—has unintended consequences, uncovering both criminal activities and the dying wishes of Foster’s friend Robert. From Pondside Manor, this unlikely bunch of gamers embarks upon an astonishing journey—blissful, treacherous, and unforgettable.

Packed with sharp wit and compassion, Mary Helen Stefaniak has written a rousing, perceptive, and utterly original novel.

*One of Crime Reads' 10 New Novels You Should Read in April*

*One of Publishers Weekly's Most Anticipated Thrillers of Spring*

*An Amazon Editors' Pick: Best Mystery, Thriller & Suspense*

With...

A Note From the Publisher

Mary Helen Stefaniak is the prize-winning author of The Turk and My Mother, Self Storage and Other Stories, and The Cailiffs of Baghdad, Georgia, which won the 2011 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for Fiction. Professor emerita of creative writing at
Creighton University, she teaches fiction writing in the M.F.A. program at Pacific University and in the International Summer School at Renmin University in Beijing. Mary Helen is a native of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She and her husband John live in
Iowa City, in a 165-year-old former stagecoach inn that they restored, and in Omaha. The World of Pondside is her third novel.

Mary Helen Stefaniak is the prize-winning author of The Turk and My Mother, Self Storage and Other Stories, and The Cailiffs of Baghdad, Georgia, which won the 2011 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for...

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A Note From the Publisher

Mary Helen Stefaniak is the prize-winning author of The Turk and My Mother, Self Storage and Other Stories, and The Cailiffs of Baghdad, Georgia, which won the 2011 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for Fiction. Professor emerita of creative writing at
Creighton University, she teaches fiction writing in the M.F.A. program at Pacific University and in the International Summer School at Renmin University in Beijing. Mary Helen is a native of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She and her husband John live in
Iowa City, in a 165-year-old former stagecoach inn that they restored, and in Omaha. The World of Pondside is her third novel.

Advance Praise

“Stefaniak infuses an often forbidding and depressing environment with joy and dignity in this Agatha Christie–esque cyber caper.”

-Booklist

“This is a really wonderful, wonderfully funny book. I laughed more times than anyone could count. Nearly every sentence has a grin to it, or a touch of wit, or just something unexpected. The World of Pondside delivers what I have always looked for in novels but haven’t seen in years and years: the freshness and the lovely sentences and all the funny stuff. The joy of life always finds a way to shine through.”

-Mike Magnuson, author of Lummox: The Evolution of a Man and The Right Man for the Job

“With infinite compassion and great good humor, Mary Helen Stefaniak takes us on a wild, suspenseful ride through a world most of us normally shy away from…Deeply moving, as heart-poundingly suspenseful as the best video games … and just plain fun.”

-Eileen Pollack, author of The Professor of Immortality

“I devoured The World of Pondside, cover to cover. There was really no way to stop. A mystery pulls us in and carries us while Stefaniak turns us this way and that, peeling back layers, giving us a view of life in a nursing home that we’ve never seen this close, this personally. Immediately engaging and perfectly phrased in Mary Helen Stefaniak’s consummately comic voice, this novel will shake you to your core. There is no turning back once you’ve opened the cover. It’s a wonderful book.”

-Pete Fromm, author of A Job You Mostly Won’t Know How to Do and If Not for This

“There’s so much I love about this novel. It manages that rare of feat of being many things at once: funny, endearing, heartbreaking, suspenseful, hopeful, and tragic. Welcome to the world of Pondside Manor nursing home. A real gem of a book that I couldn’t put down.”

-Willy Vlautin, author of The Night Always Comes and Lean on Pete

“Stefaniak infuses an often forbidding and depressing environment with joy and dignity in this Agatha Christie–esque cyber caper.”

-Booklist

“This is a really wonderful, wonderfully funny book. I...