Unruly Creatures

Independent Publishers Book AwardsSilver Medal Short Story FictionIn this collection rife with humor and pathos alienated characters struggle to subvert contain control and even escape their bodies. A teenage girl grapples with pubic hair grown wild a biologist finds herself in love with a gorilla aprisoner yearns to escape her biological destiny.In some stories the bodies have surrogates: a high-school girl babysits an elderly womans plastic doll while negotiating her own sexual awakening and a young man finds that he can only receive affection from his father when he is in costume. Dark humor and magical realism put in sharp relief the everyday trials of Americans in a story collection that asks in what way are we more than the sum of our parts?