Synopsis
A new collection of stories from the Pushcart Prize-winning author of The Mysterious Secret of the Valuable Treasure .
Glittering with mischief and perversity, Jack Pendarvis’s latest collection of short fiction introduces readers to a world of losers poised on the brink of all sorts of disaster – a world only a wink and a nod away from our own.
In the title novella a fundamentalist teenager must single-handedly confront the horrors of a spiritual quest filled with secular humanists, an apocalyptic folk artist, and a couple of movie stars. The other stories deal poignantly with – among other things – a young millionaire pretending to be a detective, Alabamians getting violent in a New York bar, the good folks who invented diarrhea-inducing chewing gum, a man who becomes an impromptu drug mule, magnetic healers, and a candidate making a sad speech for office.
Underlying each comedic gem and neurotic twist is an intelligence and empathy rarely found in modern satire. Like the best guidebooks, Your Body is Changing will invite you in with its zany humor and indict you with its moving truths.
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From the Back Cover
"There are not many truly funny writers in the world - writers who can make you laugh out loud, make you do that repetitive, mounting-laughter thing, so that you finally have to put the book down and try and catch your breath, while going 'Oh boy, wow, Oh God. Jeez.' Jack Pendarvis is, for me, one such writer. He is also the type of funny writer who sends you back into the world feeling gentler towards human beings, and I think that's because he allows so much of himself, and thus us, into these stories - our doubts, our neuroses, our weird vain hopes, our halting inarticulateness, through which we try so hard to be understood and loved. I would characterize him as a dangerously funny writer; his gaze doesn't flinch as he looks at his characters, but throughout it also maintains an essential kindness. Risky, courageous stuff. Suffice to say, I'm a fan, and I expect that, once you've read this book, you will be too." George Saunders
About the Author
Jack Pendarvis lives in Atlanta. His writing has appeared in McSweeney's, The Believer and the Oxford American, and he is a contributing editor to Paste. His stories have been anthologized in the 2006 Pushcart Prize anthology and elsewhere. Your Body is Changing is his second book.
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