Three Songs for Roxy (Conversation Pieces)

Three Songs for Roxy tells three inter-related tales: of Kizzy, a foundling raised by a Romany Gypsy family in present-day Seattle, as she is about to be claimed by the aliens who left her to be raised as human; of Scott Lynn Miller, an unstable survivor of Katrina and security guard who is deeply affected by what he witnesses when the aliens contact Kizzy; and of “Natalie,” an alien assigned to retrieve Kizzy—who is befriended by the current champion of the “Night of a Thousand Stevies” and falls in love with Kizzy’s adopted sister Roxy. Three Songs for Roxy explores issues of identity, gender, sexuality, and what it means to be an outsider.

Reviews

Three Songs for Roxy, in its delicate tapestry, its colourful simplicity, its unadorned articulacy, truly is one of those texts best discovered in the reading. This little book is brief enough to be consumed in a single sitting, but its emotional and metaphorical resonances reverberate far longer. These stories offer important insights into the life of the Roma community, and as such they are valuable on these terms alone. But above and beyond such specificity, this is a book about marginalisation on a more universal scale, the sense of community among aliens—a community to which we may each find ourselves belonging along varying axes. Gussoff examines issues of gender, sexuality, race and mental illness with a sensitivity that is all-inclusive and—if I may use such a term—wonderfully, refreshingly straightforward.

Nina Allan, Strange Horizons

A literary and science fiction writer now based in Seattle, Romani writer Caren Gussoff grew up in Yonkers, NY. She received her BA from the University of Colorado and her MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Before publishing her first novel, Homecoming, in 2000, Gussoff worked as a phone sex worker, apple cider press operator, a bar maid at raves, a high school science teacher, and a case worker for adolescent girls in foster care.

Gussoff was a finalist for the Village Voice's ''Writers on the Verge'' prize for Homecoming, and followed up with her second book, The Wave and Other Stories in 2003. She then took a brief hiatus from writing, and worked as a burlesque revival performer and taught college literature and cultural studies, as well as creative writing.

Her latest novel, The Birthday Problem, was published in 2014, and an anniversary re-issue of The Wave and a new writing guide, Creating a Sustainable Writing Practice, is forthcoming.