Mannequin and Wife: Stories - Paperback

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by Jen Fawkes (Author), Michael Griffith (Editor)

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 Biography

Jen Fawkes is the author of Mannequin and Wife: Stories (LSU Press, Sept. 2020), and the forthcoming Tales the Devil Told Me (Press 53, May 2021), winner of the 2020 Press 53 Award for Short Fiction. Her work has appeared in One Story, Lit Hub, Crazyhorse, The Iowa Review, Joyland, The Rumpus, Best Small Fictions 2020, and other venues. She is the winner of numerous prizes, including the 2019 Pinch Award in Fiction and the 2019 John Gardner Memorial Fiction Prize from Harpur Palate. She lives in Little Rock, Arkansas, with her husband and several imaginary friends.