Mannequin and Wife: Stories (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780807173916)

Winner of the Phillip H. McMath Award for prose.

In Mannequin and Wife, the debut story collection from Jen Fawkes, sharp and imaginative tales trip seamlessly across borderlands, navigating comedy and tragedy, psychological and magical realism, the mundane and the marvelous.

Readers of these adventurous fictions will encounter a flock of stenographers, the strongest woman alive, a taxidermist with anger issues, an Elephant Girl, a fairy on her lunch break, and a married couple who live with a department store mannequin. Elsewhere, an American actor impersonates a code-breaking Britisher during World War II. A mother awaiting her son's return discovers his personal ad soliciting the services of a cannibal (and fears the worst). A criminal mastermind's protégé plots the destruction of Mount Rushmore from within an extinct volcano. A man buys a drive-in theater and transforms it into a carnival sideshow. And an attorney puzzles over how to leave someone his deceased client's heart.

Fawkes's award-winning stories examine the vagaries of human relationships--mother and child, husband and wife, mentor and protégé--to tease out the startling complications that arise from our entanglements with those we loathe and those we love.

Author: Jen Fawkes
ISBN-10: 0807173916
ISBN-13: 9780807173916
Publisher: LSU Press
Language: English
Published: 09/02/2020
Pages: 210
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.60lbs
Size: 8.50h x 5.51w x 0.48d

Review Citation(s):
Library Journal 09/01/2020 pg. 62