A brilliant, disquieting first novel about a pair of conjoined twins who are deeply unhappy in each other's company. Nora, the dominant twin, is strong, funny, and deeply independent, thirsting for love and adventure. Blanche, by contrast, has been sleeping for nearly twenty years. Finally sick of carrying her sister's dead weight, Nora decides she wants her other half gone for good, so she leaves San Francisco for London in search of the mysterious Unity Foundation, which promises to make two one. And that one, of course, will be Nora -- Blanche will be mourned, but not missed.
But once Nora arrives in London, her past begins to surface in surprising and disturbing ways, forcing her into a most reluctant voyage into memory. Something seems to be drawing Nora's thoughts back to the site of her rather unusual conception, birth, and childhood -- the reconstructed ghost town of Too Bad, Nevada, where lizards skitter across the playa and "Shootout at Noon" comes every day. Searching for meaning and understanding in both her own and Blanche's past, Nora pushes herself to the brink of insanity -- and begins to question her own, and Blanche's, grip on the truth. Grotesque, funny, intricately wrought, verbally and conceptually dazzling, Shelley Jackson's first novel is an imaginative and touching portrait of two lives in a cleft world yearning for wholeness -- a world not unlike our own.

Half Life: A Novel

Literature & Fiction

Jackson, Shelley

Contemporary

Harper

Nora and Blanche are conjoined twins. Nora is strong, funny, and deeply independent, thirsting for love and adventure. Blanche, by contrast, has been asleep for twenty years. Sick of carrying her sister's dead weight, Nora wants her other half gone for good—a desire that takes her from San Francisco to London in search of the Unity Foundation, a mysterious organization that promises to make two one. But once in England, Nora's past begins to surface in surprising and disturbing ways, pushing her to the brink of insanity and forcing her to question her own—and Blanche's—grip on the truth.

United States

Harper-perennial

Amusing, touching, and unsettling, The Melancholy of Anatomy is that most wonderful of fictions, one that makes us see the world in an entirely new light. Here is the body turned inside out, its members set free, its humors released upon the world. Hearts bigger than planets devour light and warp the space around them; the city of London has a menstrual flow that gushes through its underground pipes; gobs of phlegm cement friendships and sexual relationships; and a floating fetus larger than a human becomes the new town pastor. In this debut story collection, Shelley Jackson rewrites our private passages, and translates the dumb show of the body into prose as gorgeous as it is unhygienic.

The Melancholy of Anatomy: Stories

Literary

Anchor

Scoffing at his grandmother's silly superstitions, which she tells him have been passed on from generation to generation in their family, young Willy tests her story about the boogeyman when he walks by the Big Swamp one night.

Willy's Silly Grandma

Children's Books

DeFelice, Cynthia C.

Growing Up & Facts of Life

Orchard Books

Mimi is an artistic cat in need of a human. But for a cat like herwith the soul of an artistonly an artist will do. Mr. Dada is a human who believes that art can be anything, and that anything can be art. And for a human like himwith the soul of a Dadaistonly an artistic pet will do. Sometimes, though, it takes a while for humans to see what’s right in front of them all along. So it is a good thing that Mimi is loud and silly and surprising and bold. Mimi is a Dada cat, through and through.This charming story about staying true to yourself sparkles with playful prose and stunning mixed-media illustrations while introducing readers to the Dadaist art movement. Includes an author’s note, a list of books and websites, and an index.

Mimi's Dada Catifesto

Arts & Photography

History & Criticism

Clarion Books

Having been given only two weeks by the king to find a way to turn lead into gold, Sophia realizes that she has lost the companionship of her kind master to his project, thus she decides to help him by making her own laboratory under the table in the hopes of finding a way to solve his problem.

Sophia, the Alchemist's Dog

Animals

Atheneum/Richard Jackson Books

Through a whirlwind of collage paintings, a stranger helps an old woman see the wondrous possibilities of a bothersome wave that is lovingly curled over her house, listening to her every word.

The Old Woman and the Wave

Science, Nature & How It Works

DK Pub.

CD for Macintosh and Windows. The acclaimed hypertext re-working of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, now in its 6th printing!

Patchwork Girl

Eastgate Systems, Inc.

On the theme of “the Doppelganger,” Cabinet collaborates with Kabinet, a Russian journal of art and cultural theory based in Saint Petersburg. The collaborative themed section includes a comparison of American astronauts and Soviet cosmonauts; Josiah McElheny on the cultural history of glass mirrors; Joseph Grigley on what trout fishing teaches us about mimetic theories of representation; and an interview with Viktor Sukhodrev, who was, for 30 years, the top diplomatic translator in the Soviet Union, present in conversations between Khruschev and JFK, Carter and Brezhnev, etc. Also in this issue, Shelley Jackson's “fold-in” essay on conjoined twins, Luc Sante on sepia and nostalgia, and artist's projects by Craig Kalpakjian, Luis Miguel Suro & Mario Torres, Josiah McElheny and more.

Cabinet 14: Doubles

SANTE, Luc

Strausbaugh, John

Weiss, Allen

Nagel, Alexander

Cabinet

Finalist for the Believer Book Award for Fiction Named a Best Book of Fall by Vulture, New York Magazine, and more "A ravishing novel charged with the idea of the incommunicable." ―The New Yorker Eleven-year-old Jane Grandison, tormented by her stutter, sits in the back seat of a car, letter in hand inviting her to live and study at the Sybil Joines Vocational School for Ghost Speakers &amp; Hearing-Mouth Children. Founded in 1890 by Headmistress Sybil Joines, the school―at first glance―is a sanctuary for children seeking to cure their speech impediments. Inspired by her haunted and tragic childhood, the Headmistress has other ideas. Pioneering the field of necrophysics, the Headmistress harnesses the “gift” she and her students possess. Through their stutters, together they have the ability to channel ghostly voices communicating from the land of the dead, a realm the Headmistress herself visits at will. Things change for the school and the Headmistress when a student disappears, attracting attention from parents and police alike. Set in the overlapping worlds of the living and the dead, Shelley Jackson’s Riddance is an illuminated novel told through theoretical writings in necrophysics, the Headmistress’s dispatches from the land of the dead, and Jane’s evolving life as Joines’s new stenographer and central figure in the Vocational School’s mysterious present, as well as its future.

Riddance: Or: The Sybil Joines Vocational School for Ghost Speakers & Hearing-Mouth Children

Catapult

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Jackson, Shelley. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Jackson, Shelley

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Jackson, Shelley. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Half Life: A Novel

Half Life: A Novel

The Melancholy of Anatomy: Stories

Willy's Silly Grandma

Mimi's Dada Catifesto

Sophia, the Alchemist's Dog

The Old Woman and the Wave

Patchwork Girl

Cabinet 14: Doubles

Riddance: Or: The Sybil Joines Vocational School for Ghost Speakers & Hearing-Mouth Children