Synopses & Reviews
Fiction. AT OR NEAR THE SURFACE, winner of the 2008 Michael Rubin Chapbook Award chosen by Tin House managing editor Holly MacArthur, is a collection of short fiction that, with original language and lapidary prose, explores the yearnings of a cast of characters we think we know: a young woman visited by the hand and lung and toes of the baby she miscarried in Macy's; a married couple deformed by their web of adulteries; an elderly man remembering his wife as he sets his deformed pigeons free; a chemistry teacher's surprising response to the shooting death of a student. "In fifteen wonderful stories, Jenny Pritchett stirs up a remarkable amount of grit and glory. These characters, as they stumble through their loves and losses, will remind you just how dangerous it is to be alive"--Robin Romm, author of The Mother Garden and The Mercy Papers.