The unique product of a poet with a gift for a kind of fiction that is full of formal bravado, strange incident, and a stranger but very human pathos

These gutsy and post feminist stories will elicit the shock of recognition from women and may reveal to men something about the further regions of the female psyche. By turns graphic and funny, these urban tales present characters who are teetering on the edge. Indifferent or absent lovers, too much alcohol, too many cigarettes, obsession, paranoia, a desire that is always fresh in spite of the facts—this is the macabre landscape of these very unusual and unrestrained works.

In "Reading Sontag," Addonizio invades and recasts Susan Sontag's essay "The Pornographic Imagination" while describing a monumentally failed relationship. In "The Gift," a woman finds a dildo on the street and is magically transformed into a man.These are fictions to prepare us for the real millennium.

Writer and poet Kim Addonizio lives and teaches writing in Oakland, California. Her many books include poetry:Three West Coast Women,The Philosopher’s Club,Jimmy & Rita ,Tell Me,What Is This Thing Called Love, and  Lucifer at the Starlite; and fiction:Crimes of Passion,The Poet’s Companion: A Guide to the Pleasures of Writing Poetry, Little Beauties, My Dreams Out in the Street and Best New Poets 2009 (editor).