What I Didn't See: Stories

Karen Joy Fowler

Sep 2010 · Small Beer Press

About this ebook

Praise for Karen Joy Fowler:

"No contemporary writer creates characters more appealing, or examines them with greater acuity and forgiveness."—Michael Chabon

"Fowler's witty writing is a joy to read."—USA Today

World Fantasy Award Winner

In her moving and elegant new collection, New York Times bestseller Karen Joy Fowler writes about John Wilkes Booth's younger brother, a one-winged man, a California cult, and a pair of twins, and she digs into our past, present, and future in the quiet, witty, and incisive way only she can.

The sinister and the magical are always lurking just below the surface: for a mother who invents a fairy-tale world for her son in "Halfway People"; for Edwin Booth in "Edwin's Ghost," haunted by his fame as "America's Hamlet" and his brother's terrible actions; for Norah, a rebellious teenager facing torture in "The Pelican Bar" as she confronts Mama Strong, the sadistic boss of a rehabilitation facility; for the narrator recounting her descent in "What I Didn't See."

With clear and insightful prose, Fowler's stories measure the human capacities for hope and despair, brutality and kindness. This collection, which includes two Nebula Award winners, is sure to delight readers, even as it pulls the rug out from underneath them.

Karen Joy Fowler (karenjoyfowler.com) is the author of five novels, including Wit's End, PEN/Faulkner finalist Sister Noon, and New York Times bestseller The Jane Austen Book Club. Her collection Black Glass won the World Fantasy Award. Fowler and her husband, who have two grown children, live in Santa Cruz, California.

About the author

Karen Joy Fowler is the author of five novels, including Wit’s End and The Jane Austen Book Club, which spent thirteen weeks on the New York Times bestsellers list, was a New York Times Notable Book, and was adapted as a major motion picture from Sony Pictures. Her novel Sister Noon was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award for fiction, and her short story collection Black Glass won the World Fantasy Award. She has co-edited three volumes of The James Tiptree Award Anthology and wrote the introduction to the recent Penguin edition of The Complete Novels of Jane Austen. Fowler and her husband, who have two grown children, live in Santa Cruz, California.