The Loss of Leon Meed

The Loss of Leon Meed
Josh Emmons

‘Josh Emmons is the real deal: a major league prose writer who has fun in every sentence; you want to keep reading him for the pure pleasure of his company’ Jonathan FranzenOver the course of one December, ten residents of Eureka, California, are brought together by a mysterious man, Leon Meed, who repeatedly and inexplicably appears – in the ocean, at a local music club, clinging to the roof of a barrelling truck, standing in the middle of Main Street’s oncoming traffic – and then, as if by magic, disappears.Each witness to these bewildering events – young and old, married and single, punk and evangelical, black, white and Korean – interprets them differently, yet all of their lives are irrevocably changed. Over time, these ten characters, previously only tenuously connected, form a strange community of shared experience.Highly original and brilliantly written, Josh Emmons’s award-winning debut is a mystery, a love story and something else entirely.

THE LOSS OF LEON MEED

Josh Emmons

Copyright (#u0d8a8110-faf2-5d7f-a0e7-971b457b91fa)

The Friday Project

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)

This edition published by The Friday Project 2015

First published in the USA by Scribner in 2005

Copyright © Josh Emmons 2005

Cover Layout Design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2015

Josh Emmons asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780007592906

Ebook Edition © March 2015 ISBN: 9780007592913

Version: 2015-03-05

Praise for The Loss of Leon Meed: (#u0d8a8110-faf2-5d7f-a0e7-971b457b91fa)

‘Here’s how you know Josh Emmons is the real deal: he’s created a full spectrum of Californian characters who are ludicrous and ill-behaved and lovable in equal measure; he’s a major-league prose writer who has fun in every sentence without ever showing off or hitting a phony note; and you want to keep reading him for the pure pleasure of his company’

JONATHAN FRANZEN

‘Emmons writes with crisp, gratifying authority. The Loss of Leon Meed has considerable appeal … and succeeds in finding comic potential in unlikely places’

New York Times

‘Emmons cycles through and illuminates the plights of his diverse, crowded cast – including a recovering alcoholic, an overweight therapist and a Korean hippie – with a finesse that approaches that of a seasoned literary ventriloquist. The characters’ stories take on a cumulative, mesmerizing rhythm’

New York Times Book Review

‘An audaciously ambitious first novel … The Loss of Leon Meed is a canny status report on the American soul … engaging, enigmatic’

Los Angeles Times

‘A mystical ensemble fable about chance and fate and the importance of not giving up … Emmons has sizable talent [and] a real shape-shifter’s gift for imagining his way into lives different from, and especially older than, his own … There’s wonderful stuff here, little stylistic pleats, serifs and tailfins that root in the mind and just won’t budge. Its central enigma rewards speculation’

San Francisco Chronicle

‘As remarkable and moving a portrait of America as I have seen in some time’

GARY SHTEYNGART, author of Super Sad True Love Story

Dedication (#u0d8a8110-faf2-5d7f-a0e7-971b457b91fa)

For my parents

Contents

Cover (#u778b2b26-e871-58f6-98e1-8bdee602d35e)

Title Page (#uf256a3a4-7ba1-568a-93f9-930d9816a36e)

Copyright

Praise

Dedication

Part I

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Part II