Proper Imposters: Four Novellas (Paperback or Softback)

Distributed by University Press of Florida on behalf of Panhandler Books, an imprint of the Department of English and World Languages at the University of West Florida

In Proper Imposters, four contemporary authors explore the vices and virtues of deception and how it manifests in ways personal, psychological, propulsive, and profound. An accountant at a pencil manufacturing company investigates a series of ominous events behind the facade of the mysterious company where he works; from their deathbeds, fictionalized versions of Nikolai Gogol and Edgar Allen Poe look back on their lives and remember an epic, transformational, and ahistorical road trip they took together as young men; a young woman is startled into action trying to execute “a simple plan” of escape involving cash, a sleep-over by her college roommate and the bold seduction of a boy she has decided to lose her virginity to; and, a reclusive night-shift worker tries a daring weight-loss experiment only to find himself pursued by a stalker no one else can see. Montiel Figueiras, Parker, Bhuvaneswar, and Ockert are devotees and virtuosos of the form, and each novella is lyrically rich in its prose and swift in its plotting. Together, the novellas startle with the consequences of seeing and being seen.

Chaya Bhuvaneswar is a practicing physician, writer, and PEN /American Robert W. Bingham Debut Fiction award finalist for her story collection White Dancing Elephants: Stories, which was also selected as a Kirkus Reviews Best Debut Fiction and Best Short Story Collection and appeared on “best of” lists for Harper’s Bazaar, Elle, Vogue India, and Entertainment Weekly. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Salon, The Sun, Narrative Magazine, Tin House, Electric Literature, Kenyon Review, Masters Review, The Millions, Joyland, Michigan Quarterly Review, The Awl, and elsewhere. She has received fellowships from MacDowell, Community of Writers, and Sewanee Writers Workshop.

Mauricio Montiel Figueiras is a writer of prose fiction and essays, as well as a poet, translator, editor, and film and literary critic. He is the author of fifteen books in different genres. His work has been published in magazines and newspapers in Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Italy, Peru, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States. He has been Resident Writer for the Cheltenham Festival of Literature in England (2003) and The Bellagio Study and Conference Center in Italy (2008). In 2012 he was appointed Resident Writer for the prestigious Hawthornden Retreat for Writers in Scotland. In 2020 he was selected artist in residence for the Saari Residence in Finland. Since 1995 he lives and works in Mexico City.

Jason Ockert is the author of Wasp Box, a novel, and three collections of short stories: Shadowselves, Neighbors of Nothing, and Rabbit Punches. Winner of the Dzanc Short Story Collection Contest, the Atlantic Monthly Fiction Contest, and the Mary Roberts Rinehart Award, he was also a finalist for the Shirley Jackson Award and the Million Writers Award. His work has appeared in journals and anthologies including Best American Mystery Stories, Granta, The Cincinnati Review, Oxford American, One Story, and McSweeney’s. He teaches at Coastal Carolina University.

Jeff Parker is the author of several books including Where Bears Roam the Streets: A Russian Journal, the novel Ovenman, and the short story collection The Taste of Penny. He teaches prose in the MFA Program at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and he is the co-founder and director of the DISQUIET International Literary Program in Lisbon, Portugal.