Degas at the Gas Station: Essays -- Thomas Beller, Paperback

In his latest collection, Thomas Beller trains his piercing literary eye on how a single, seismic event indelibly shapes the trajectory of the common and mundane experiences of one's life. Weaving together a charming set of autobiographical stories, Beller interrogates the randomness and contingencies that separate sadness from joy, death from life. His father escaped the Nazis, only to die in America from cancer when Beller was nine years old. Beller measures how this loss impacted his life as the father of two young children and became both a catalyst for understanding an ever-present sorrow. At the same time, ordinary moments--from retrieving an iPod from the subway tracks to encountering the police at a Kinks concert to observing his young tutued ballerina daughter at a gas station--lead to instances of penetrating insight, self-deprecation, and humor. Degas at the Gas Station presents an endearing and bracingly honest portrait of the author as an ever-curious observer of the mysteries and profundities of everyday life.

Author: Thomas Beller
Publisher: Duke University Press
Published: 11/04/2025
Pages: 280
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.85lbs
Size: 8.90h x 5.90w x 1.30d
ISBN: 9781478033035

Review Citation(s):
Kirkus Reviews 08/15/2025
Publishers Weekly 09/29/2025

About the Author
Thomas Beller is Professor of English at Tulane University, a regular contributor to the New Yorker, and the author of several books, most recently, Lost in the Game: A Book about Basketball, also published by Duke University Press.