American Decameron

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As its title suggests, American Decameron is comprised of one hundred short stories, each either set in the United States or featuring Americans in far-flung places, and each assigned to a different year of the twentieth century, which historians often refer to as “the American Century.” Although the stories here are presented chronologically, it isn’t necessary for them to be read sequentially, with the exceptions of “1901: Arboreal in Texas,” and “2000: Convergent in Connecticut,” which serve as prologue and epilogue for the book and should be read first and last, respectively.

The stories, though discrete in terms of time and place, tone and subject matter, are complementary components of a singular journey through the century now past. Together, the one hundred different narratives create a patchwork of American life in an era that seems at times familiar, at other times wholly archaic compared to the way we live our lives today.

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