Genevieves

Fiction. A shape-shifting presence named Genevieve unites these nine surreal stories, haunting the characters as they transcend and escape the traps of the everyday. Visions carried over from childish desire and imagination start to manifest in adulthood. In the mysteries that wake us up only to show us a new dream, Genevieve exists.

The stories in GENEVIEVES flit and flirt about the edges of different genres. Quirky and quietly unruly, these are the kinds of pieces Djuna Barnes might have written if she'd been born in the South on the verge of the 21st century.--Brian Evenson

Henry Hoke pushes the button on literary convention in this fierce and funny collection. GENEVIEVES is a weapon of mass re-creation that will take you to the highest point in the haunted levels of language.--Elisabeth Sheffield

In GENEVIEVES, Henry Hoke conjures up a beautiful yet broken America haunted by lost dreams and childhood secrets, but most of all haunted by language. The lyrical stories explore a space somewhere between Anne Carson and David Lynch. Written largely in crystallized fragments of prose, the stories are strung together like glittering and strange necklaces. When you look closely, you realize what you thought were plastic beads are actually bits of Halloween candy and the bones of birds. Try these stories on and see the world in a new way.--Lincoln Michel

Witty, startling, even macabre, GENEVIEVES is attuned to the nonexistent, and yet is so tethered to what is real, right in front of us, peeled back, laid bare, remarkably precise. The specters of this book index something just outside the periphery, questioning our relationship with the real. Sometimes alarming, sometimes telepathic, this is a stunning work.--Janice Lee