Large animals
By: Jess Arndt
Publisher: Catapult
Published: 2017
Language: eng
Number of pages: 134
ISBN-13: 9781936787487
Subjects: Gender identity; Fiction
Work titles: Short stories
Description: JESS ARNDT 's striking debut collection confronts what it means to have a body. Boldly straddling the line between the imagined and the real, the masculine and the feminine, the knowable and the impossible, these twelve stories are an exhilarating and profoundly original expression of voice. In "Jeff," Lily Tomlin confuses Jess for Jeff, instigating a dark and hilarious identity crisis. In "Together," a couple battles a mysterious STD that slowly undoes their relationship, while outside a ferocious weed colonizes their urban garden. And in "Contrails," a character on the precipice of a seismic change goes on a tour of past lovers, confronting their own reluctance to move on. Arndt's subjects are canny observers even while they remain dangerously blind to their own truest impulses. Often unnamed, these narrators challenge the limits of language--collectively, their voices create a transgressive new formal space that makes room for the queer, the nonconforming, the undefined. And yet, while they crave connection, love, and understanding, they are constantly at risk of destroying themselves. Large Animals pitches toward the heart, pushing at all our most tender parts--our sex organs, our geography, our words, and the tendons and nerves of our culture.
Table of contents: title: Moon colonies --; title: Contrails --; title: Jeff --; title: La gueule de bois --; title: Been a storm --; title: Shadow of an ape --; title: Third arm --; title: Together --; title: Can you live with it --; title: Containers --; title: Beside myself --; title: Large animals.