Top
Pushing the limits of literary fantasy, this astonishing first collection marks the debut of a brilliantly subversive new writer. Surreal and audacious, Bev Jafek's writing brings to mind the fantastic short fiction of Borges, Boyle and Calvino - exhibiting an imagination the likes of which is rarely seen. Many of the nine stories have already won the author critical acclaim ranging from The Pushcart Prize and the Carlos Fuentes Award to inclusion in several volumes of The Best American Short Stories.
The dangers of intimacy and losing one's identity in a marriage are examined in the title story, a breathtakingly daring work about a wife who is literally devoured by her husband and children as they partake of a neverending sacrament - an ancient ritual to satiate an ancient hunger - in a gleaming Formica kitchen with all the modern conveniences.
Talk show host of the future John Q. Slade recounts the edge-of-your-seat excitement of the night Mickey Mouse went philosophical on him on live TV in "You've Come a Long Way, Mickey Mouse." In "Schrodinger's Cat," the theoretical physicist runs into his cat, Young Werther, in the state of alternate reality posited by his theory and is greeted by the cat: "Welcome to nonexistence. It's quite a place."
Combining offbeat and wildly intelligent humor with an unerring sense of post-modern absurdity, Bev Jafek offers a bracing look at modern technology, modern relationships and the ever-present threat of the future breathing down our necks.
