Fiction. Showing a distinctly un- glamorous side of Southern California, these lyrical short stories are set in run-down diners and other neighborhood eateries with names that range from the prosaic (Breakfast) to the whimsical (Egg Heaven). In one place they offer only chicken pot pie, all day, every day. In another, they serve you what they think you need—order pancakes, you might get a BLT. Waitresses, cooks, and customers collide, coexist, sometimes offer comfort along with grilled cheese sandwiches or chorizo- scrambled eggs. The stories feature lost mothers, runaway mothers, mother- substitutes; daughters fleeing their old lives and waiting to build new ones. Men and women worn down with disappointment still manage to form connections with each other, share moments of joy. These are lives on the margin, portrayed with respect and compassion. "Parks is a master of the short story... [She] connects us all with the poetry of the human experience."—Foreword Reviews "Robin Parks is a skilled and elegiac storyteller. The stories in EGG HEAVEN are as tough as their terrain, but also mournful, surprising, and vivid."—René Steinke, author of Friendswood "Parks's compassion for her characters bleeds through the wreckage of their lives; we are presented, ultimately, with a picture of healing and hope."—Gina Ochsner, author of The Necessary Grace to Fall and The Russian Dreambook of Color and Flight "In Robin Parks's characters, in these finely wrought stories, we find a simple and decided and unflinching dignity and courage."—Thomas E. Kennedy, author of The Copenhagen Quartet "This engaging collection... will reward any short fiction reader who picks it up."—Booklist "Illuminates a world entirely its own, its authenticity built upon the subtle, vital gesture."—Kenyon Review

Egg Heaven: Stories

Literature & Fiction

Parks, Robin

Contemporary

Shade Mountain Press

Fiction. For decades, Della Brown has tried to forget her service as a U.S. Army nurse in Vietnam. But when she receives a letter from a fellow combat nurse, once her closest friend, all the memories come flooding back: Della's nightmarish introduction to the Twelfth Evacuation Hospital, where every bed held a patient hideously wounded in ways never mentioned in nursing school. The day she learned how to tell young men they were about to die. The night her chopper pilot boyfriend failed to return from his mission. She must also confront the fissures in her family life, the mystery of her father's disappearance, the things mothers and daughters cannot—maybe should not—know about one another, and the lifelong repercussions of a single mistake. An unflinching depiction of war and its personal costs, HER OWN VIETNAM is also a portrait of a woman in midlife—a mother, a nurse, and long ago a soldier. "Kanter explores the life of Della Brown and the haunting effects of her time in Vietnam with great emotion and insight. This novel successfully captures a very specific time in history but it also reveals the more subtle battles of a daughter, sister, wife, mother and friend."—Jill McCorkle, author of Life After Life, Tending to Virginia, and Going Away Shoes "Lynn Kanter's characters, Della and Charlene, could be anyone's mother, sister, or daughter. Because they are so accessible, the reader finds it easy to journey with them. It should be a required trip for everyone, particularly those who think there is glory in war."—Mary Reynolds Powell, Captain, U.S. Army Nurse Corps, Vietnam 1970-71, author of A World of Hurt: Between Innocence and Arrogance in Vietnam "HER OWN VIETNAM will captivate you, and bring you to tears. It will also give you a deeper understanding of what military nurses endure."—Military Spouse Book Review "This novel is one of the best books about nurses in Vietnam."—VVA Veteran (national magazine of the Vietnam Veterans of America) "Well written, compassionate, and perceptively told, addressing the trauma felt by the 'invisible' women in Vietnam."—Foreword Reviews

Her Own Vietnam

Kanter, Lynn

Fiction. Latino/Latina Studies. Women's Studies. Just before her father's sudden death, Cuban- American artist Veronica Gonzalez is offered her first gallery exhibit, a real chance to break into the art world. Torn between the need to mourn and the pressure to create new artwork, Veronica is propelled into a fever-dream of productivity and grief, amidst memories of her tumultuous relationship with her colorful but infuriating Cuban émigré father, a volatile man of outsize appetites and passions who never stopped longing for his homeland. Praised by Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka for its "lyrical pace and texture," WHITE LIGHT maps a young woman's struggle to distill her grief, rage, and love onto the canvas. "A relentless engine, told in rich, smart prose and lucid detail—equal parts elegy and portrait of an artist. A lush, vibrant portrayal of the creative process, a daughter's love, and the unstoppable maelstrom of grief."—Kirkus, starred review

White Light

García, Vanessa

United States

Fiction. Women's Studies. The thirty-six stories in this anthology, all by women authors, center around female characters who follow their own paths and tell the powers-that-be what they don't want to hear. These women stand up for themselves, for each other, for their beliefs. The characters include housewives and high school students, a stand-up comedian, an artist, an attendant at a nursing home, several scientists. There's a woman who turns into a leopard; a chemist who comes to the rescue of a resuscitated Isaac Newton; and a female giant who metes out rough justice in a futuristic penal colony for male criminals. Navigating a fine line between anger and laughter, these are raucous stories of solidarity, resistance, transformation, and joy. Contributors include Gina Ochsner, Kathleen Alcalá, Theodora Goss, Kim Chinquee, and Katherine Vaz. "Thirty-six spellbinding stories about the active, spirited lives of women... Throughout each is the common denominator of an active female character who embarks on her own hero's journey... With prose that ranges from the humorous to the lyric and forms that range from the real to the magical, here is a vital addition to contemporary literature."—Kirkus "This is more than women being unruly: this is women being courageous, outrageous, brutally honest, and more than anything, talented. The stories sing off the page—and then turn into a howl of rage, delight and hope. THE FEMALE COMPLAINT is a collection that deserves to be taught, and read, for years to come."—Rene Denfeld, author of The Enchanted "Forty years ago when women blazed literary trails, they were paths through the woods where no one heard the trees falling. This time on a paved road through landscapes urban, suburban, exurban, and rural, these women are still throwing themselves and their lives out into new thematic territory."—Cris Mazza, author of Various Men Who Knew Us as Girls and co-editor of Chick-Lit: Postfeminist Fiction "Often unsettling in the best sense, these stories cross cultures and mental states... Compelling and ambitious stories dedicated to honoring the more turbulent desires."—Lee Upton, author of The Tao of Humiliation: Stories and Bottle the Bottles the Bottles the Bottles: Poems

The Female Complaint: Tales of Unruly Women

Kearns, Rosalie Morales

Fiction. Asian &amp; Asian American Studies. Semi-Finalist, Thurber Prize for American Humor. Marty Wu, compulsive reader of advice manuals, would love to come across as a poised young advertising professional. Instead she trips over her own feet and blurts out inappropriate comments. The bulk of her brain matter, she decides, consists of gerbils "spinning madly in alternating directions." Marty hopes to someday open a boutique costume shop, but it's hard to keep focused on her dream. First comes a spectacular career meltdown that sends her ricocheting between the stress of New York and the warmth of supportive relatives in Taiwan. Then she faces one domestic drama after another, with a formidable mother who's impossible to please, an annoyingly successful and well- adjusted brother, and surprising family secrets that pop up just when she doesn't want to deal with them. Mining the comedic potential of the 1.5-generation American experience, NOT A SELF-HELP BOOK is an insightful and witty portrait of a young woman scrambling to balance familial expectations and her own creative dreams. "A breezy and charming tale ... Anyone who's grown up immersed in a profoundly rich old-world culture and feels its constant pull will commiserate—and be entertained."—Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan, author of A Tiger in the Kitchen: A Memoir of Food and Family "Marty is a wonderful character who learns to stand up for herself and discovers what she really wants in life."—Booklist "An expert combination of humor and deep feeling... Digs deep into the particular challenges of defining and asserting an artistic identity in the world."—PANK Magazine "Ceaselessly surprising and entertaining... Lai's debut is an unexpectedly radical book on our deeply complicated relations with parents."—Hyphen Magazine: Asian America Unabridged

Not a Self-Help Book: The Misadventures of Marty Wu

Lai, Yi Shun

Fiction. African &amp; African American Studies. THE HOUSE OF ERZULIE tells the eerily intertwined stories of an ill-fated young couple in the 1850s and the troubled historian who discovers their writings in the present day. Emilie St. Ange, the daughter of a Creole slaveowning family in Louisiana, rebels against her parents' values by embracing spiritualism, women's rights, and the abolition of slavery. Isidore, her biracial, French-born husband, is an educated man who is horrified by the brutalities of plantation life and becomes unhinged by an obsessive affair with a notorious New Orleans voodou practitioner. Emilie's and Isidore’s letters and journals are interspersed with sections narrated by Lydia Mueller, an architectural historian whose fragile mental health further deteriorates as she reads. Imbued with a sense of the uncanny and the surreal, THE HOUSE OF ERZULIE also alludes to the very real horrors of slavery, and makes a significant contribution to the literature of the U.S. South, particularly the tradition of the African-American Gothic novel. "Blurs the edges between dream and reality, madness and magic."—Gayle Brandeis "Intriguing and compelling at every turn."—Maisha Wester

The House of Erzulie

Kasai, Kirsten Imani

Fiction. African &amp; African American Studies. It's 1919, a time when traveling medicine shows can still find audiences eager to buy miracle "cures" and watch old-fashioned variety acts onstage. Stephanie Allen's novel TONIC AND BALM follows one such troupe, Doc Bell's Miracles and Mirth Medicine Show, as it winds through Pennsylvania, struggling to stay afloat amidst internal discord and dwindling revenues. Doc Bell's show, which features both black and white performers, includes a song-and-dance team whose marriage is fraying, a sword-swallower and her charming but fickle lover, and a medical doctor in a downward spiral of alcoholism. Performers and crew alike are caught off-balance when the show takes on a new addition, a young woman with hydrocephaly, who finds herself cast into a dismaying role as a sideshow exhibit. Set against a backdrop of rural poverty and a wave of anti-black violence, TONIC AND BALM examines the tenuous solidarity and shifting alliances of people on the fringes of society. "Uses [the medicine show] to explore larger issues of race, class, and gender...Gives us characters who defy stereotypes."—NPR "Fearlessly offers the B-side of American culture—more sultry, racially turbulent, eccentric, harrowing, even redemptive."—Howard Norman "A fascinating look at [an] itinerant troupe and their hardscrabble world. Black, white, hetero, gay—about the only thing the performers share in common is their poverty, a trait which also marks their audiences...Highly recommended."—Historical Novels Review "An unforgettable chorus of con men, roustabouts, and 'freaks' that broke my heart while also leaving me uplifted and wanting more."—David Haynes "The multivocal narration of the troupe makes the book resemble its subject. Each new story is another act, another performer...An unusual book on an unusual topic, and a fine fictional chronicle of a lost art."—Masters Review "Entertaining and deeply affecting... TONIC AND BALM, ... like the medicine show itself, is wonderfully strange and haunts the imagination long after the players have exited the stage."—Small Press Picks "Even as [the characters] fight against each other..., they push harder to remain connected...We are with them at each moment, pulled in deeper and deeper at every turn of the page."—Fiction Writers Review "Restores the voices of overlooked American exiles, a troupe of people striving for their day in the sun."—Cathy Day

Tonic and Balm

Allen, Stephanie

Fiction. Women's Studies. Disability Studies. A middle school teacher relies on eight interchangeable heads to cope with her job. A woman tries to negotiate life with her arthritis witch and her boyfriend's seizure elf. The Germanic goddess Berchta, tired of being a fearsome hag, shows up in a woman's apartment wanting to be flat-mates. In the fictional worlds depicted in INSTANCES OF HEAD-SWITCHING, sphinxes are kept as pets, unicorns are raised on ranches, and Sisyphus has escaped from Hades and is happily working as a bagger at a grocery store. But characters still struggle to pay bills, deal with cranky customers and bosses, and navigate life with partial vision, limited mobility, and chronic diseases. Focusing on themes of embodiment, disability, and economic insecurity, Teresa Milbrodt offers witty and inventive tales full of compassion for her cash-strapped, hard-luck characters. The collection includes stories originally published in Guernica, Strange Horizons, PANK, and other journals.

Instances of Head-Switching

Milbrodt, Teresa

Short Stories & Anthologies

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