by Karen Joy Fowler (Author)
World Fantasy Award Winner
Shirley Jackson Awards shortlist
Locus Award shortlist
Story Prize Notable Books
Frank O'Connor Award longlist
An exceptionally versatile author.--St. Louis Post-Dispatch
In her moving and elegant new collection, New York Times bestseller Karen Joy Fowler writes about John Wilkes Booth's younger brother, a one-winged man, a California cult, and a pair of twins, and she digs into our past, present, and future in the quiet, witty, and incisive way only she can. The sinister and the magical are always lurking just below the surface: for a mother who invents a fairy-tale world for her son in "Halfway People"; for Edwin Booth in "Booth's Ghost," haunted by his fame as "America's Hamlet" and his brother's terrible actions; for Norah, a rebellious teenager facing torture in the World Fantasy and Shirley Jackson Award winner "The Pelican Bar" as she confronts Mama Strong, the sadistic boss of a rehabilitation facility; for the narrator recounting her descent in "What I Didn't See." With clear and insightful prose, Fowler's stories measure the human capacities for hope and despair, brutality and kindness. This collection, which includes two Nebula Award winners and stories which have been significantly rewritten since first publication, is sure to delight readers, even as it pulls the rug out from underneath their feet.Author Biography
Karen Joy Fowler: Karen Joy Fowler is the author of six novels including Booker Prize finalist and international bestseller We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves, Wit's End, and The Jane Austen Book Club -- which spent thirteen weeks on the New York Times bestseller list, was a New York Times Notable Book, and was adapted as a major motion picture from Sony Pictures. Her novel Sister Noon was a finalist for the 2001 PEN/Faulkner Award for fiction, and her short story collection Black Glass won the World Fantasy Awards. Fowler and her husband, who have two grown children, live in Santa Cruz, California.