The Art of the Knock: Stories (William Morrow, 1985). Short stories appeared in The New Yorker, The Washington Post Magazine, Carolina Quarterly and Chicago Review, and in the anthologies The Norton Book of Ghost Stories, edited by Brad Leithauser, and Contemporary American Short Stories (Germany), and were reprinted in India and the Netherlands. The Art of the Knock was listed as one of the best new works of fiction of 1985, by the San Francisco Chronicle.

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“Philip Graham astonishes us with two unusual combinations: stories that are original and unalienated, risky in form and language and joyfully accessible.”  –Grace Paley

“Philip Graham is at his best when writing about the mysteries of domestic life.  His sleight of hand is so sure that the revelations never seem random; time after time, we are subtly persuaded that magic moments do exist.  The stories are unique, risky, funny,and often quite beautiful.  This is a wonderful book.” –Ann Beattie

“Graham investigates and celebrates human intimacy in this book. He makes the reader laugh at the characters’ idiosyncracies, grow sober at their problems, but he leaves the reader wiser to human predicaments, to the baffling ways we hide from one another and the frightful loneliness that results. This is a book you will remember with fondness.” –James Mendelsohn, reviewing The Art of the Knock for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, February 9, 1985.

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Excerpt from the short story “I Dreamt About You Last Night,” from The Art of the Knock :

He was exhausted and felt ensnared in his accumulating falsehoods. He switched off the television, the lights, and walked to the bathroom, where he turned on the water from the shower head and adjusted the temperature. His left foot tingling, still half-asleep from standing, Turley undressed in front of the mirror and was suddenly afraid of what he saw. Under the harsh fluorescent light he could see the symmetrical trails of blue veins that traveled his pale body, half of his blood running to his heart, the other half running away. He turned off the light, felt his way to the tub, and showered in the dark.

He dried himself quickly and then walked carefully to bed, his hand sweeping before him in the darkness. In bed, he slowly turned under the covers, and when he lay still he could feel the force of his monotonous, trembling heart as he thought of all the lies on the walls. When he was finally asleep, Turley dreamt that his bones began to grow fluorescent in his body, beginning with his jaw and spreading down the spine and limbs until they gleamed against his frail and hidden muscles and organs. When he lifted his hands the bones glowed, illuminating a mirror on the wall. He walked to it and stared, terrified, at his livid skull, at the shining sockets beneath the gristle of his nose, and he ran from this vision. But as he rushed through the rooms the walls flared bright, his own dark words now visible through the paint and surrounding him. He continued to tear through the house, his feet aching, his lungs beating against the blaze of his ribs, and he tried to leave his body behind, but how could he escape from his own terrible light?