Jigs and Reels - Softcover

Joanne Harris

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0552152331 ISBN 13: 9780552152334

Publisher: Black Swan, 2005

Synopsis

Take your partners, please. Suburban witches, defiant old ladies, ageing monsters, suicidal Lottery winners, wolf men, dolphin women and middle-aged manufacturers of erotic leatherwear: in these twenty-two short stories from the author of "Holy Fools" and "Five Quarters of the Orange", the miraculous goes hand-in-hand with the mundane, the sour with the sweet, and the beautiful, the grotesque, the seductive and the disturbing are never more than one step away. "Jigs and Reels" is Joanne Harris' first collection of short stories. As she says in her foreword, a good short story can startle, ignite, and illuminate...giving you vivid, anarchic glimpses into different worlds, different people. Here, she proves she is as good as her word by creating an eclectic selection of tales for our times that will delight, surprise, entertain and horrify in equal measure. Sly, funny, sometimes provocative but always personal, "Jigs and Reels" shows a side to Joanne Harris you have never seen before. So go on, be tempted. After all, it's only dancing.

About this title

About the Author:

Joanne Harris is the author of the Whitbread-shortlisted Chocolat (made into a major film starring Juliette Binoche), Blackberry Wine, Five Quarters of the Orange, Coastliners, Holy Fools, Jigs & Reels, Sleep Pale Sister, Gentlemen & Players and, with Fran Warde, The French Kitchen- A Cookbook and The French Market- More Recipes from a French Kitchen. She lives in Huddersfield, Yorkshire, with her husband and daughter.

From Booklist:

The popular author of Chocolat (1999) and Five Quarters of the Orange (2001) is best known for her sensual descriptions of food and her pleasing portraits of small-town life in France. Fans who pick up this collection of 22 short stories will be surprised at the new directions Harris explores here. Very brief stories prefaced by one- or two-sentence explanations of their origins reveal Harris' tart take on working out at the gym ("not my favorite place") or cosmetic surgery. Others, more fantastical in nature, ponder what would happen if an author ended up in a room with the characters from manuscripts long left unfinished or the plight of a monster who lures victims by setting up elaborate role-playing games. Also included is an impassioned retelling of the Cinderella story from the ugly stepsister's viewpoint and a tale about a young wife who discovers that the recipes in her mother-in-law's treasured if musty cookbook often have unintended consequences. It's possible that staunch Harris fans will be put off by her dark and fanciful tales because they are so unlike her mainstream fiction. Some of the stories, as well, seem to be more tossed off than fleshed out. Still, these inventive, darkly humorous pieces might intrigue readers looking for something entirely different. Joanne Wilkinson
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About this edition

• Publisher: Black Swan
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0552152331
• ISBN 13: 9780552152334
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 288