thumb|[[Adriaen van der Werff's 1687 work, Children Playing before a Hercules Group, inspired the title.]]

Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules is a 2005 anthology of short stories edited by David Sedaris.

Sedaris published this book in order to support 826NYC, a nonprofit writing and tutoring center in Brooklyn, New York. All of his proceeds, after permission expenses, from Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules will benefit this organization designed to help students ages six to eighteen develop their writing skills through free writing workshops, publishing projects, and one-on-one help with homework and English-language learning. In the book's epilogue, Sarah Vowell describes 826NYC's work.

The book's title references a painting by Adriaen van der Werff.

Contents

  • Introduction by David Sedaris
  • "Oh, Joseph, I'm So Tired" by Richard Yates
  • "Gryphon" by Charles Baxter
  • "Interpreter of Maladies" by Jhumpa Lahiri
  • "The Garden Party" by Katherine Mansfield
  • "Half A Grapefruit" by Alice Munro
  • "Applause, Applause" by Jean Thompson
  • "I Know What I'm Doing About All the Attention I've Been Getting" by Frank Gannon
  • "Where the Door Is Always Open and the Welcome Mat Is Out" by Patricia Highsmith
  • "The Best of Betty" by Jincy Willett
  • "Song of the Shirt, 1941" by Dorothy Parker
  • "The Girl with the Blackened Eye" by Joyce Carol Oates
  • "People Like That Are the Only People Here: Canonical Babbling in Peed Onk" by Lorrie Moore
  • "Revelation" by Flannery O'Connor
  • "In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson Is Buried" by Amy Hempel
  • "Cosmopolitan" by Akhil Sharma
  • "Irish Girl" by Tim Johnston
  • "Bullet in the Brain" by Tobias Wolff
  • Epilogue by Sarah Vowell

References

  • Interview in The Free Times