Elect H. Mouse State Judge: A Novel
One of The Millions’ Most Anticipated Books of 2013. One of Flavorwire’s Favorite Cultural Things This Week. “William  Blake laid it out: Stories are those of innocence or of experience; any  messy gray area between the two, presumably, belongs to J.D. Salinger,  Judy Blume and whoever else has taught teens important coming-of-age  lessons. But what if precious childhood emblems came to life and the  limbo between guilelessness and corruption became the norm? . . . While  toying with the reader’s expectations based on well-known  anthropomorphic animal tomes, Reifler does an excellent job weaving  between chipper and creepy. Though short and sweet, this novella of  lascivious Barbies and political mice leaves a lingering suspicion that  purity and worldliness are not far from one another.” —Matthew Love,  TimeOut New York “A hilariously weird little book . . . reminiscent of Toy Story with a Coen Brothers twist.” —Tyler Coates, Flavorwire“Nelly  Reifler’s joyride of a first novel, Elect H. Mouse State Judge joins  the pantheon of morality tales centered on rodents—Aesop’s Fables, Maus,  An American Tail: Fievel Goes West. Her slim volume sets itself apart  from the pack with a riveting detective story that remixes Dashiell  Hammett and Toy Story, along with a freakish sense of humor. This kooky  playground disturbs all the more for its seeming innocence . . . Far  from cartoonish, the mice and dolls that people Reifler’s novel  transcend their plastic or furry bodies.” —Zyzzyva“[Reifler]  has skillfully packed big elements—childhood, suspense, sex, longing,  violence, religion, love . . . [She] easily works on many levels at  once, mini to meta. Within this dollhouse-scaled world dwell very human  extremes . . . Part Beatrix Potter, part Kafka, it’s a total delight.”  —Chronogram“To Kafka’s ‘Josephine, the Mouse-Singer’ and  Bolaño’s ‘Police Rat’ and Mrs. Frisby and that one A. M. Homes story  where the kid gets it on with a Barbie doll, we must now add Nelly  Reifler’s first novel. It’s a fast-paced caper—politician’s kids get  abducted, private eyes go searching—but with a major twist: H. Mouse is a  mouse, and both perps and dicks are dolls. Shrewdly, Reifler serves  this concoction neat; what could have been cheap thrills give way to  weirder and more surprising effects.” —Garth Risk-Hallberg, The Millions“Hilarious,  gripping, sad, weird, and most (and best) of all, wholly and utterly  its own thing.” —Aimee Bender, author of The Particular Sadness of Lemon  Cake “A playtime serial full of Peril! Corruption! Sex!  Betrayal! It is, to be sure, a strange little book. Go ahead: pick it  up. It’ll only hurt a little.” —Jim Lewis, author of The King Is Dead “Like  a Toy Story / Wind in the Willows mash-up deejayed by Philip K. Dick,  Nelly Reifler’s Elect H. Mouse State Judge is a book as weird and  wonderful as they come: funny and sorrowful, deranged and beguiling,  suffused with apocalypse and nostalgia. You’ll want to read it in a  single sitting—and then you’ll want to read it again.” —Justin Taylor,  author of The Gospel of Anarchy Praise for See Through“Spring-loaded  miniatures that flirt with the surreal edges of childhood and  adolescence . . . You’re astonished at [Reifler’s] daring.” —Los  Angeles Times“With the blackest of humor, an icy exactitude, and  an ironic edge, these stories are reminiscent of Edward Gorey and . . .  Patricia Highsmith.” —Bookforum